Brief Video Introduction to Monster Studies

It may come as a surprise to many of you that we’ll be spending most of our time in English 1302 studying and writing about monsters, but there are more and more college courses across the country devoted to this topic. From English to Sociology to Psychology to Medicine to Art, monsters are compelling as objects of study because they also allow us to think about ourselves and our society, especially about how we organize ourselves and about how we reach our shared values, whether they are spoken or unspoken. In the end, the study of monsters is also the study of us. This TEDx talk by Louise Zhang addresses the social role of horror and especially of monsters from the perspective of an artist. Zhang is the first of several thinkers whose views we will consult this semester as we try to make better sense of the meaning of monsters in our lives.

Welcome to your first assignment. This is a diagnostic essay, which means that I’ll be using the essay to get a sense of your strengths and weakness as a writer. If you complete the essay, you’ll get a 100–I won’t be grading this particular assignment for grammar or sentence structure. This is just to get you writing, without fear of grading. This assignment will be devoted to making sense of the idea of “critical thinking,” and identifying it when we see it in action.

Critical Thinking: Before I give you the prompt for this assignment, here is a little on the idea of critical thinking in academic writing: Critical thinking can be defined in a basic way as the reprocessing of an accepted norm. The phrase, “critical thinking” is a commonly used phrase in academic writing, and it is usually used to convey the idea that independent reasoning plays a big role in the writing process. It describes that point in your writing when an original idea emerges that no one, not the teacher, not the classmates, maybe not even the writer her or himself would have though to say before it emerges: a point of inspiration. We writing teachers don’t like to see students rehashing the same old cliches again and again but we also try to recognize that it can be very difficult to break out of habituated ways of thinking, so we try to encourage critical thinking as a process–something that you can cultivate by paying attention to your own thoughts and to how they interact with the writing and ideas of others. Being able to think through problems and write about them with care, and with a willingness to question, will give you the opportunity to develop a meaningful voice as a writer.

Prompt: Ok, now on to the assignment. We’ll begin with the basic premise that Louise Zhang’s TEDx talk on the meaning of monsters displays a fair amount of this kind of thinking that we’re calling critical thinking. Even though critical thinking is a tough concept to fully define, for this assignment we will try to simply “know it when we see it.” Your assignment is to find a moment in Zhang’s talk when she demonstrates critical thinking and to explain your choice to your reader. Remember that in order for it to really be an instance of critical thinking, it has to surprise even you–to tell/show you something new about the topic it is discussing. Thus, you need to pick something that Zhang says that gave you a broader or different perspective about horror, or about monsters. Try to address each of the following three questions by the end of your response:

What point in Zhang’s talk do you want to focus on and why? Include a direct quotation/citation from the talk in order to clarify for the reader what you’re referring to. Also include reference to a time marker on the video, so that I can find the moment myself. Finally, make sure you set up the quote–telling the reader what’s going on at that point in the talk, and providing some context for your choice.

What makes this moment an instance of critical thinking and why? Spend some time making sense of the moment that you’ve chosen. It’s not enough just to say that this is critical thinking. Explain why, using reference to the definitions provided in the paragraph above, or to your own understanding of this concept.

What is it that this particular instance of critical thinking can tell us about horror? Remember to address the broader context of Zhang’s talk. She’s not just doing the work of critical thinking for fun, she’s doing it in order to better understand horror, and monsters. Make sure you address these topics too.

Formatting and Length Requirements: Submit the response as a Word document and don’t forget to submit your work by the due date to avoid academic penalty. This response should be at least 700 words in length and should use proper MLA style throughout.

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