CLST/WSGS 295-WI: Women in the Classical World Fall Semester 2009 Dr. Jacqueline Long

Source Exercise 2

Goals

• To gather information from selected literary and documentary texts: practice skills of analysis in reading
• To summarize your information clearly and concisely: practice skills of exposition in writing
• To prepare for in-class work on analysis for societal and cultural knowledge

The approach:

1. Read literary sources L&F³ 7-11 and documentary sources L&F³ 38, 317-318, 323-325, 329-332, 398-399, 402-404. L&F³ 7 refers to the collectively-imagined world of traditional mythology, but all the others apparently refer to lived experience of the Classical Greek world. Using Lefkowitz's and Fant's notes to help, but especially relying on your own critical reading, identify specific indications within the texts that help you reconstruct women's experience. This sifting of information is part of the labor of "understanding" the text, as sketched by Koeller's Using Historical Sources. For each piece of information, note in which L&F item it is contained. The L&F item-numbers will be the most convenient reference-system to use for this exercise in documenting your sources, but for purposes of sorting the information now, note also the date, provenance [handy one-word term for "place from which it comes"], and author to the extent you can tell - they're all part of "placing the source in context." Finally, note the type of text the source is - part of "classifying" it.
   • What information do the texts provide about women's social relations? What activities of women are attested in these sources, with what people are women attested as being connected, what relationships and common purposes govern their interactions?
   • What information do the texts provide about women's cultural environment? What items of artistic production (material or verbal), what aesthetics, what beliefs, what values are involved in the women's activities and relationships attested by these texts?
2. Sort the information you have gathered regarding these two questions. For the written part of the exercise, make two lists each concisely summarizing the information on one and on the other inquiry. Summarize especially around the points of information, but also note if you see distinctive patterns emerging around the type of text or the provenance, and any shifts you see over time. Do not yet add interpretation to the data you're drawing from the sources, and do not worry yet about connecting your separate pieces of information together into an argument: right now the written exercise should focus on the skills of information-gathering and concise, concrete summary. Write clearly, in complete, grammatically correct sentences. Present each item of your lists as a separate paragraph. Aim for no less than 1/2 and no more than 1 full page for each list: convey a maximum of information directly and effectively. Include the source-reference L&F number with each item of information, as a parenthetical note. For ease of legibility, word-process the lists in double-spaced, 12-point Times Roman.
3. Having written everything as clearly, concisely, and correctly as you can, review Strunk and White (especially about any concerns that spurred professorial red marks last time) and revise your way conscientiously through your summaries again in order to bring them even closer to perfection. I've often seen attention to Principles 16 and 17 (Ch. 2) and Reminders 4, 5, 6, 14, and 16 (Ch. 5) pay off big.
4. Proofread everything and revise again.
5. Come to class Monday 28 September with your summaries in hand, ready to contribute to collaborative discussion. The summaries will be collected in class.

Revised 24 September 2009 by jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/classicalstudies/