Week 5: Song of Roland

Writing Assignment:

There are two parts to this week’s assignment. Make sure to complete and submit both of them.

First, write a body paragraph for the paper topic you have chosen for the first paper. Each body paragraph should make a claim in the form of a topic sentence, provide evidence from our primary source(s) to support that claim, and provide analysis of the evidence that explains how it supports your argument. You will peer review your body paragraphs in section, so bring this with you on Friday in addition to submitting it online.

For the writing assignment proper (250-300 words), imagine you are making a movie version of the Song of Roland. Which actors would you cast as Roland, Oliver, Turpin, Charlemagne, Ganelon, and Marsile? Choose an actor to portray each of these characters and explain why you have chosen each specific actor for the part you have assigned them. What is it about the actor that you think makes them a good fit for the character they would play?

The point of this exercise is to get you to think about the personalities of each of these characters. You should integrate specific details from the book (with page numbers) to justify your casting choices. 

If you're having trouble coming up with actors for each of the characters, you can focus on describing each of the characters using details (with page numbers) from the book.

Answers should be 250-300 words and include specific details and page numbers from the reading.

Grading:

The purpose of these assignments is to demonstrate that you've done the reading and learned something from it. You should make sure to address all parts of the question and provide specifics like names, places, context, and page numbers in your answers.

For example, if you say that someone gave a speech before a battle, I'm going to want to know who gave the speech (names), which battle it was (context), and where it was (places). I also want to know what page(s) this material is on. Although these are short writing assignments, you still want to provide details (history is all about the details).

100% - addresses all parts of the question and provides details like names, places, context, and page numbers.

90% - addresses all parts of the question, but may lack some detail -OR- provides great detail but does not answer part of the question.

80% - answer is correct, but vague, one or more parts of the question may be unanswered.

70% - answer is very vague and multiple parts of the question are unanswered.

50% - I suspect that you read the source, but your answer totally lacks detail and doesn't demonstrate that you learned anything from the reading.

0% - It's clear that you didn't read the source, or you didn't turn in a writing assignment.