The objectives of our writing projects are several. You will learn:

• What resources are available to you at Macalester, especially the MAX Center
• How to use, evaluate, and cite (using the MLA system) library and on-line resources
• How to plan, draft, and revise academic writing
• How to organize a paper: make thesis statements, summarize, compare, interpret, analyze, and argue for/against, and
• How to develop, argue, and support your own ideas
• How to steer clear of plagiarism

We will start with five short projects on various aspects of War and Peace. We will learn how to use our library resources with the help of our specialist librarians. We conclude with a final scholarly research paper. The short projects and library sessions will feed into the final project. The sooner you can decide on a topic for the final project, the better, but lots of help is available! Think about what aspect of literature you are especially interested in. Are you interested in more literary aspects such as (language, artistic devices, comparisons, textual structure, means of characterization, setting descriptions, of texts, stylistics, narrativity, etc.) or cultural, historical or other more contextual aspects (Russian society, class system, serfdom, landowner life, social occasions, gender and age in 19th-century Russia, history of the Napoleonic era, Napoleon, Alexander I, Kutuzov, generals, military organization, battle scenes, philosophical or religious questions, psychology, etc.)? Think about these sorts of things before and while you read, narrow down options, and start following one or a couple of topics while reading War and Peace. Make margin notes in your book, use post-it stickers, underline, highlight, and take notes—I can almost guarantee that otherwise you'll waste a lot of time looking for things you know you saw, especially in a long text like W & P. We start with this long and rich text, so almost any of these sorts of aspects could be your focus. It's of course tricky to decide before you've read the texts (the dilemma of all literature courses!), so don't hesitate to consult, brainstorm, raise questions, with me (who have read the text though I'm rereading it with you!) or Alexis (who has read other works by Tolstoy and is also now reading War and Peace). You will also have a chance to get feedback from the class and my hope is that once you've chosen a topic, you'll serve as a kind of unofficial class expert on it. You are of course not locked into any topic you might have started with and usually you'll find surprising new topics or new angles on topics you've chosen, and your project gradually becomes specific and gets its unique focus and title. DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR HELP!!

For each project I suggest the following steps:

• Read & research with notes/scribbles
• outline and write a first draft
• discuss it with your roommate, fellow students, but especially Alexis and/or me as specified for each project (giving others decent time to read it!)
• Revise/rewrite/edit both substantially and "cosmetically" (typos, punctuation, verbosity, and the like)
• Hand in to me
• (and for the research paper) You will have an option to revise/rewrite for a better grade if you turn it in on schedule.
• (and for the research paper) Present informally in class.

Your librarians recommend: Research tools at Macalester http://libdata.macalester.edu/libdata_pos/page.phtml?page_id=116

Each project should be typed in the MLA format (see Lunsford, Andrea A., Easy Writer (or some web site, such as . http://dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities.html ) and printed on white computer paper, double-spaced, and fulfill all aspects of the assignment and my guidelines.
Make sure you give credit where credit is due: document all your references, whether quotation or paraphrase, including ideas you may have gotten orally from people. A good source for writing and sources, check out http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/index.html.

Plagiarism will not be tolerated! See The Max Center Writing Handbook and your Student Handbook.

Common first-year misconceptions about scholarly writing:

• "You can't be personal and use 'I'." This is nonsense—I even encourage using I as a way of standing firmly and openly behind your ideas.
• "Use 'big' words whenever possible." This too is nonsense—a simple and clear language is usually the best way to get a message across. This of course does not mean that you should not use a thesaurus for alternative ways of saying things or scholarly terms and the academic jargon of our field, but don't do it just to seem scholarly!
• "Intensifiers, such as very, extremely, much quite, and the like make your argument more convincing"—this too is nonsense: pay attention to the substance of what you want to say and use these words sparingly.
• "The more quotes, the better"—not so. You should avoid letting quotes dominate your paper. Stringing together quotes that fit your subject makes for awkward reading. Often it is better to paraphrase—remember that your main objective is a clear, flowing, and persuasive prose. You want the paper to present your argument and you want it to hang together.
• "Longer is better and more difficult"—length does not imply quality and one of the hardest things is to pare down one's own "brilliant" writing to the essentials (Think about Tolstoy and Hadji Murad!). Verbosity distracts from good analysis.

SHORT PROJECTS

No outside research or secondary sources required (but also not prohibited). Average length expected 1-2 pp (unless otherwise specified)
2 drafts/rewrites required, more recommended. Drafts to Alexis. MLA style documentation of primary source/s (and if you choose to use secondary ones) is expected.

#1: Summary
In your own words, summarize W&P, Book I, Chapter 1: “1805. Anna Scherer’s soiree" (pp.3-19) in three different formats

• a one-page chapter
• one paragraph
• one sentence
  

Objectives

1. To get used to close reading of literary texts
2. To foster clarity and brevity in writing
3. To abbreviate without distorting the original
4. To start thinking of who “owns” the words in a text. Tolstoy “owns” the text you’re reading, including characters’ speech which he “quotes” in different ways. You “own” the retelling and need to assign speech appropriately (“Tolstoy writes,” etc.) This has to do with what we’ll call “narrativity.”
5. To get rid of information that is “unnecessary” to the plot (though NOT of course “unnecessary” to W&P as a whole).
6. To figure out what sorts of “unnecessary” information you cut out and what function such information might play in the text. This will play a part in the “stylistic” aspects of the novel and Tolstoy’s specificity as a writer.
7. To get you started thinking about possible topics for your research.All of these activities and thought processes will enter a scholarly research paper in one way or another and should therefore feed into your final project. Summarizing will also give you skills for future “abstract” writing.

#2: Annotated Bibliography entries.
In conjunction with our library bibliographic instruction sessions, locate a web source (our list is empty at this point) and a paper source (one that’s not yet on our list or on it) that seem relevant to W&P, and annotate them:

• summarize them to give the rest of the class some idea of the contents of the texts.
• evaluate them: how reliable are they? Is the publication where they appeared academic or commercial? Is the author a known Tolstoy expert?
• create bibliographical entries for them in the MLA format with your annotations following each entry.

Objectives:

1. To get you started on the nitty gritty technicalities of research and writing
2. To familiarize you with scholarship on Tolstoy and begin the class’s custom-made W&P research bibliography that all of you can access for your research.
3. To get some sense of what scholars write about W&P and how they do it
4. I’d like you to work independently, but we will probably get some overlap, which I hope will lead to discussions and comparisons of summaries and evaluations.

#3: Description/analysis
Tolstoy's Method of Characterization (use of "telling" details).

• Choose a fictional character and describe the first impression Tolstoy gives of this character, what details he focuses on. Then look at the next appearances of this character and see what details he repeats (external description, speech, actions, relationships to others, repetition, etc.)
• Contemplate what aspect of a person Tolstoy focuses on? What sorts of details does he repeat? How does he use and repeat these details in the following Books (as far as we've read)? What is the effect on you as his reader?
• Based on the "telling" details you've found, analyze the character's role in the context of the whole (so far): his/her role and function in the novel (personal qualities, prominence in the story, relationships to others, Tolstoy's attitude to the class s/he belongs to, what s/he conveys about Russian life in war/peace, and the like.)
• Speculate about his/her further fate (backing up your speculations by the textual facts you've discovered)
• You might find the Ginzburg and Shklovsky articles we read useful and you might peak ahead at the Morson article. This is not required as research, but they might give you ideas. IF you use them, make sure that you cite them appropriately

Objectives:

1. Getting used to pay particularly close attention to a specific aspect of a literary work.
2. Getting exposed to Tolstoyan stylistic devices
3. Getting beyond description/summary to scholarly interpretation and analysis
4. Becoming aware of characters as literary, artistic constructs
5. Forming and expressing personal opinions and evaluations based on textual fact
6. Learning about Russian society, Tolstoy, and the period
7. Potential for turning into the topic for your research paper
   

#4 Argue against Pisarev's reading of Nicholas Rostov (whether you actually disagree with him or not!)

• Read Dmitri Pisarev's short piece, "The Old Gentry," (W&P: 1099-1101) closely and jot down the main points he makes about Nicholas
• Try to figure out what axe he has to grind with Tolstoy—the piece is about class. . . If you really want to know more about Pisarev and his approach to literary criticism, check his entry in Handbook to Russian Literature or some encyclopedia
• Try to find instances that contradict his evaluation and "take apart" Pisarev's argument
• Present your own positive (or at least more positive) view as persuasively as you can.
  
  Objectives:

1. Civil, polite, to the point argumentation is a basic scholarly skill that you'll find useful in all your papers. You might, for instance, insert a few positive things before the big "however…." (as in "Pisarev is right. . ., however. . .")
2. Awareness of different possible interpretations of the same text.
3. To build up confidence about your own reading of texts and not automatically be swayed by all "scholarly authorities" and "big names."
4. Persuasiveness—you need this skill too, because in all papers you write you need to convince your reader of your point of view. It is also useful to be aware that others try to persuade you, and that you should keep a critical eye open at all times so you don't fall for everything (cf. advertising!)
5. To learn about the Russian Gentry
6. To learn about a specific kind of literary criticism dominant in the second half of 19th-century Russi
7. To ponder the relationship between politics and literature
8. To think "outside the box."
9. Potential topic for further research?

#5 Comparison and Analysis
Tolstoy's Depictions of Napoleon and Kutuzov as military commanders-in-chief OR Napoleon and Alexander I as Emperors (so far)

• Pay attention to how the two are described and how they act.
• How does Tolstoy contrast them
• These are of course real historical characters—do they correspond to what you know about French/Russian history or what might be reasonably known by historians? How does Tolstoy fictionalize them for his own purposes—does he relate things that could not be known through history?
• What is he trying to say?
• Are these figures heroic? Why? What is heroisnm?
• Whom does Tolstoy seem prefer (based on what you read in his text, of course)

Objectives

1. To learn how to compare and contrast effectively
2. To weigh positive and negative characteristics fairly
3. To learn about French and Russian history
4. Promote awareness of history/fictionality
5. Promote awareness of serious/ironic presentations
6. To discern patterns of characterization
7. To "read between the lines"

Topic decision: 10/25 in class

Bibliography: 11/8 in class

Outline: 11/17 in class

Draft: 11/29 in class

Final copy: 12/6 in class

Topics, starting points

Just to start you thinking I've jotted down some rather random topics that hopefully will give you some ideas when you try to come up with your own ones. These are NOT intended as paper titles , nor do I require that you pick any of them—think of them as starting points!

• Russian serfdom/peasants, as depicted in W&P. If you like, compare to American slavery
• Class behavior in W&P
• Character NN's Behavior in Battle
• Character NN's psychological reaction to his/her environment, event, position
• How does Tolstoy treat other historians/ of the 1812 campaign?
• Tolstoy’s Metaphors or other comparisons (e.g.) war/chess/ game; Moscow/beehive, etc.
• Film and book—focus on "your" topic (or other very specific topic) and analyze how the film conveys it, comparing it to Tolstoy's text.
• Nationality, nationalism, and patriotism in W&P; France versus Russia as cultural concepts
• The social function of salons in W&P
• French versus Russian language in W&P; how does lingustic behavior change with the war; language and politics; language as characterization
• How is Napoleon referred to, by whom, and why?
• "High society" culture and /or "peasant" culture in W&P (songs, games, musical instruments, proverbs, bouts-rimés, proclamations, etc.)
• War reporting: how are battles reported to authorities; rumors; truth versus lies. How does Tolstoy's account compare to current reporting, embedded journalism, CNN reports from the field, etc.
• Schemes and plans—Compare Tolstoy's account of the 1812 war and today's various schemes, such as "roadmaps," UN resolutions, etc.
• Political/military heroes/personages in 19th-c.Russia and today's Russia (war in Chechnia) or today's US (you pick a conflict or war!, Rumsfield, Condi Rice anyone?)
• The role of dreams and reveries in W&P
• Aspects of religion, spirituality, spiritualism, Freemasonry in W&P
• Tolstoy's uses of the sciences (e.g. medicine, mathematics, physics)
• History / politics (choose some much more specific aspect of these) in W&P or as expressed through character NN
• Do a comic strip W&P-on-a-page a la the one I've shown you (You could do either "war" OR "peace" to make it a bit more manageable, and analyze it as a culture studies critic-scholar might do OR, alternatively, do a scholarly cultural studies analysis of the existing one. The strip itself is not sufficient—you need to complement it with some scholarly research and analysis