• Choose a SHORT PASSAGE: your whole paper will be an explanation of this passage, what is interesting/important/puzzling/decisive/pivotal/impressive/disturbing/innovative/traditional/etc. about this passage. The passage should be NO MORE THAN 10-30 lines.
• A good way to approach this: find an "interesting" passage.
• It should interest you, of course, but more importantly, it should be a passage that you think people who have read the texts we have read should find interesting because of how it relates to what we have read. Your task then becomes explaining to them why they should find it interesting.
• In order to explain why other people reading Homer and tragedy and reflecting on them should find your passage particularly interesting, you will need to refer to other passages frequently, because that is the "evidence" that should persuade them that what you say is interesting about your passage really does make your passage interesting. It shows how your passage relates to the other things we have read.
• It is interesting to identify differences from other versions, or to point out similarities. It is interesting to point out themes that recur elsewhere in different situations (vengeance, imagery of nets, misogyny, nationalism, etc.). It is interesting to point out historical factors (where Homer has bronze age political structure, Aeschylus may have traces of democratic thinking, or other 'anachronistic' features). It is interesting to point out scope (for instance, Aeschylus is often concerned with cosmic issues, Euripides is concerned with intensely personal ones). It is interesting to point out similar theatrical effects or plot devices, etc. It is interesting to point out what difference it makes that a character is saying something versus the omniscient narrator of epic.
  
• THE MAIN POINT IS THAT YOU ARE TO PRESENT CLAIMS ABOUT WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT THE PASSAGE AND BACK IT UP WITH EVIDENCE THAT THE CLAIMS ARE TRUE.
• Things you could explain about the passage include, but are in no way limited to (under no circumstances should you try to cover all of these: choose a few carefully):
• How it differs from or is the same as what Homer has to say about the same characters/events.
• Provide a list of common elements and differences. These elements might include characters' traits, names, actions, props, the order in which things happen, focal differences (for example, focus on adultery being wrong v. focus on consequences of it for children v. focus on how it always ends badly), thematic issues (themes such as misogyny, legal analogy, savageness, or binary things such as male/female, divine/mortal, live/dead, wild/civilized, loyal/disloyal, domestic/civic, etc.), attitude toward the events, etc. etc. etc. Don't use the list just given, unless it really works: use the passage to come up with your own elements. Those are just meant to be illustrative examples.
• As usual, avoid extensive plot summary.
  
• How it differs from the same thing treated in another tragedy (feel free to read other tragedies)
• The same things apply here as to Homer above.
• How it connects to other scenes in the tragedy:
• Again, this is not an opportunity for extended plot summary. That is a first-draft thing that you then need to judiciously rework into an explanation of YOUR ideas, not the plot.
• For instance, there may be multiple scenes of recognition: compare/contrast them.
• Or there might be multiple analogies to lions and prey, flames and light, or water (or any metaphor/simile/analogy): find them, list them, and say something about what role they play in the tragedy.
• Or maybe there are multiple women wronged who decide to take things into their own hands or not to.
  
• Or maybe your passage is one character's view of X, but other characters offer different views.
  
• There are "typical" elements of tragedies that you can identify and include as relevant to your passage if it contains one or part of one:
• messenger speeches
• recognition scenes (when Electra recognizes Orestes, for instance)
• other revelations (when something the audience knows/expects is hidden/unknown to a character, but then is revealed (and is important)
• deaths: how are they presented?
• characters:
  
• often there is a subservient character, some slave/servant/captive: how are they treated as compared with Homer and other tragedies?
• this subservient character may be a nurse, an old man, a servant: there are other such characters in Homer or other tragedies.
  
• or maybe there is a woman accused of sorcery: that's a stereotype: analyze it, find parallels, and think about how it is used in the tragedy by the playwright.
  
• or maybe a young person of noble birth finding their way to adulthood: stereotype, analyze it.
• the "main character": often there is a character trait that is the key to that main character's tragedy: find it, compare it to others.
  
• Euripides has "debate scenes": what is the functional equivalent in Sophocles or Aeschylus? what about other debate scenes in Euripides?
• Opening scenes
• Choral odes: where the chorus has an extensive set of lines. The Chorus often recounts myths: why that myth in that place?
• Stichomythia: where two (or more) characters each get a line, and they go on for a while one after the other: identify an interesting passage of it, and then look for what makes it typical of or different from others (there are lots).
• other things: how do the various playwrights treat the punishment of Orestes: choose a relevant passage, focus on it, and bring other plays' treatment in as comparison/contrast.

GRADING FACTORS FOR TRAGEDY PAPER: this is pretty much the rubric I will use to assess your papers, so make sure you think you have done everything here well.

1. Did you identify several important aspects of the passage? (the lists above are possibilities) ~15%
   
2. Did you explain each those aspects well? ~10%
   
3. Is the paper unified into one complete thing? Did you make clear that you had fully accomplished one well-defined task? ~10%
   
1. "Well-defined" means that it is clear what belongs to the task, what does not, that it forms a whole, and that you covered it fully.
1. Imagine the task were "to make pancakes": if you left out cooking them, you would not have completed the task; if you left out ingredients, you would not have completed the task; if you include making bacon, you have added something that doesn't belong to the task. Once you have explained it, it is clear that you are done: the 'conclusion' is not unexpected, but is an accomplishment.
   
2. Imagine the task is to explain arming scenes in the Iliad: if you left out helmets, you would be leaving out an important part; if you failed to mention where arming scenes typically occur, you would have left out an important part; if you include much about scenes of taking someone else's armor, that would be irrelevant. Once you covered all the elements from head to toe, and identified where such scenes occur and perhaps what they contribute, it would be clear that you were done, and the conclusion would follow naturally.
   
3. Perhaps a bad example would help: "I'm going to explain Clytaemnestra's robe, her argument that adultery is OK, and her position in the family, as well as what I think of her": those things have little to do with each other: they are just a list of things that have to with Clytaemnestra, but they don't add up to anything.
1. Don't hand in a list! Hand in something that fits together well as one task that has been completed.
   
2. If you choose your passage carefully, so that the passage itself somehow forms a whole, this will be much easier.
3. Also, if you set yourself a task in your first paragraph, and then each paragraph is clearly a step toward finishing the task, and the conclusion follows naturally, because the task is obviously complete, then you have fulfilled the spirit of this bullet point.
   
4. Did you give good evidence for your claims: cite specific lines as evidence where appropriate (if in doubt, cite more)? ~25%
   
1. "Citing" means giving line numbers, not quoting.
5. Did you focus on your passage and delve deeply into it? ~10%
   
1. stick to your passage throughout the paper
2. the only reason anything outside of that passage should be featured is because it contributes directly to your explanation of the passage.
   
3. explain big concepts briefly then apply them specifically to your passage
4. identify parallels briefly and apply them to your passage.
5. everything that is not your passage should be done briefly and applied specifically to your passage.
1. If there are a lot of, for example, metaphors like one in your passage, explain the one in your passage, and then list others that share elements, others that differ from yours (and how they differ, but briefly)
6. Does the paper flow well, as in do the thoughts and sentences relate to one another well in such a way that the reader can easily see what you are up to in the paper and why? ~10%
   
1.  the switches from part to part, paragraph to paragraph: is it made obvious why the next thing comes next? what it has to do with what precedes? how it fits in with what follows? How it contributes to the task at hand?
7. Is it correct standard formal English? ~5%
   
1. Proof-reading!!!
2. Get others to proof-read it!
3. Do it again the next morning!
4. Do it again before printing!
8. Length and density of content: I expect 4 pages packed with thought all about your passage. ~15%
   
1. This is related to "focus": #5 above.
   
2. That means that I expect you to fill 4 pages: 3.1 pages is 0.9 less than 4 pages. If your 3.1 pages are super-impressive, then 3.1 is fine, but if you are at all worried, add more content until the paper is a full 4 pages.
   
3. Repetition is not appropriate in a 4 page paper. Eliminate repetition and put more content in its place.
4. Wordiness is not appropriate: after your first draft, go through and try to make it shorter while keeping all of your important content. Then fill the space gained with more content (more evidence, an additional observation, etc.).
5. A long introduction is not appropriate: do not take a full paragraph to introduce the topic without saying anything specific or just saying what you will say. Start out specific to the passage. No need to explain what tragedy is, where it fits in Greek history, etc. Do not zoom out at the start.
6. I will consider whether I can easily rewrite what you wrote in fewer words and yet keep ALL of your content. If I could do that rather easily, that will result in a large deduction.
1. As you slim down your prose, be sure to preserve ALL content and also to preserve readability, explanoriness, etc.
2. Slimming down is best done on the pre-final draft, which should be significantly longer than the target word count.