Your Final Project

Like all good things, our quarter with Vonnegut has come to an end, but not unlike the "cleaning-up" that Billy Pilgrim and his fellow POWs find themselves doing in Dresden as World War II, we (well, you) have a little more grim and dirty work ahead of you.

It's a final essay, but it's not . . .

We've gone over the details of the final project more than once in class, but here's a more detailed breakdown of what I'd like to see from you.  In a literature class like this, one would expect to be asked to write a scholarly essay making some sort of critical argument that's supported by (con)textual evidence from the quarter's readings (all of which is properly cited in MLA format).  Vonnegut's work, however, doesn't necessarily call for the same response as other authors and so instead of a straightforward essay, I'd like you to produce a creative piece that — for all intents and purposes — achieves all of those same goals.  

Let's leave form aside for a second and focus on function instead.  Vonnegut's been dead for five years now, though he was as fiery a social commentator in his final years as he'd ever been . . . even more fierce, perhaps.  What I'd like you to do in your final project is to pick up his gauntlet and carry on in his stead.  Choose a contemporary issue that's important to you and write a creative piece that aims to capture your best estimation of what Vonnegut's stance on the topic would have been, in his style, and using anecdotes, examples, characters, etc. from the eight novels you've read this quarter as evidence to support that position.

How about some examples?

So how do you get the creative and the critical components working together?  First, pay attention to some of the hybrid writing the Vonnegut's doing in the latter years of his life.  As we've already discussed in our last class, the epilogue to Jailbird is an excellent model for your work, as are Vonnegut's bookend chapters (nos. 1 & 10) of Slaughterhouse-Five, Jonah's more meta-narrational moments in Cat's Cradle and the majority of Timequake.  This part fiction/part nonfiction approach will serve you well.  Remember that you don't need to tell a fully-formed story with a beginning, middle and end — think of it more in the mode of occasional storytelling, as if you happened to sit down next to a stranger at a bar and struck up a conversation, and don't forget Vonnegut's very helpful writing tip of having one particular person in mind when you're writing (he often wrote to his sister Alice).

The most useful tactic at your disposal, and a very Vonnegut-ian one, is to make extensive use of allegory in your work.  Of course, not only is Vonnegut an agnostic humanist who can see the value of faith for others and quote extensively from the bible, but he's also a big believer in one of Christ's favorite literary devices: parable.  There's perhaps no better (and more commonly used) example of this in Vonnegut's writing than Kilgore Trout, whose stories serve to make points in a more vivid way than mere explication ever could.  Likewise, think of the tangential characters who aren't directly connected to a storyline but serve an important purpose furthering the ideas behind the novels — like Powers Hapgood and Sacco and Vanzetti in Jailbird, or the brief mention of RFK and MLK in Slaughterhouse-Five.  Use Vonnegut the way he uses Kilgore Trout, or use Trout the way Vonnegut uses Trout, or use Vonnegut's other characters in the same fashion.

In terms of the argument you're going to make, you'll have to work through precedent — points of view expressed in the works we've read that you feel are applicable to the issue you're addressing.  Vonnegut's certainly opinionated and not at all shy about sharing his ideas, so you should have plenty of material to make use of in your piece.

Aside from all of the texts mentioned above, here — to give you a taste of Vonnegut's most pointed writing in a political mode — are a few superlative selections from Vonnegut's last published book, A Man Without a Country (2005), which collected a number of essays he penned for the news magazine, In These Times:

• "State of the Asylum," which includes a dialogue between Vonnegut and Trout
• "Cold Turkey," perhaps the most famous of Vonnegut's ITT pieces
• "Requiem for a Dreamer," the final dialogue between Vonnegut and Trout, who committed suicide soon thereafter (disregard the fact that he died in Timequake)
• "American Xmas Card 2004"

Additionally, if you're looking for tips on how to write like Vonnegut, why not take a look at his own advice about writing?


Anything else I should know?

Here are a few important guidelines for your final projects — fail to meet these requirements and, well, you'll fail(!):

• Length: 6-8 double-spaced pages — that's full pages, and not counting your works cited list, so to be safe, make sure your piece goes on to page 7.  If the spirit moves you and you find yourself writing a longer piece, please don't feel constrained by the 8 pg. limit (that's just a general ballpark length to aim for).  On the other hand, if you hand in a paper that's less than 6 full pages, you'll automatically receive an F (so don't do that).

• Formatting — particularly since you're sending your file to me electronically, it would not be wise to play around with margins, get cutesy with font sizes, etc.  12 point Times New Roman is lovely and easy on the eyes, to boot.  Barring that, Cambria or a similar serif typeface (serifs, don't ya know, are those little decorative doohickeys at the ends of the letter) will be fine.  I'm partial to the elegance Goudy Old Style (but that's just me).

• MLA citations and works cited list — you'll find links to MLA resources here.  Don't forget that you need to cite paraphrases and summaries of source texts in addition to direct quotations.

• No block quotes — there is, perhaps, no greater comfort to the unprepared last-minute writer than the block quote — just cram it all in there, making no attempt to trim the text (or disguise the fact that you're cutting and pasting from Wikipedia).  In formal essays of lengths longer than what you're being asked to deliver here, I might allow students to use one block quote in their essay, but there's no reason whatsoever for block quotes in a final project like this.

• Due date — Wednesday, June 6th at midnight.  Please send your final to me at my gmail address (which is my last name [dot] my full first name at gmail.com) as an attachment.  While the registrar's official deadline for grades to be posted is June 13th at 5:00 PM, by then I will be in New York buying too many books and drinking heavily after a long (though lovely) academic year (drinking water, that is . . . it's hot in New York in the summer).  When I get your paper, I'll download it to make sure that it opens without issue and then write you a little note confirming that I've received it.  Don't forget that late assignments lose a full letter grade for each day they're late and also be grateful that I originally set the deadline for the 5th, but in honor of Vonnegut's birthday being 11/11, decided to go with 6/6 (though not with a cut-off of 6pm).