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Essay Instructions: Middle Eastern poets often write poetry that describes the joy and the struggle of writing poetry. They often try to convey the responsibility they feel to write about their nation’s or their people’s difficulties. This can be seen in some of the poetry we have read for this class this semester. This also comes up in the material of other poets. Research the phenomenon of Middle Eastern writers feeling obligated to write about the real events and people around them (as opposed to topics disengaged from real life or their personal experiences) and look at the works of some or all of the following poets in addition to one or more poets read for class and discuss how each poet you chose speaks about the significance of poetry and the role of the poet in a society undergoing change and upheaval.

Ozkan Mert (Turkish)

Taha Muhammad Ali (Palestinian)

Eliaz (Elias) Cohen (Israeli)

Aharon Shabtai (Israeli)

Naguib Mahfou (Eygptian)

It will be useful to find, if you can, interviews or articles about these authors to get beyond the words of their poems to their motivations and personal histories. Look beyond Google and see what you can find out about poetry and poetry writing by using library-provided databases such as Academic Search Complete, General Onefile and so on.

You may not use Wikipedia. Paper requires some personal input and interpretation of the literature involved. You can use "I" and "My".

Please let me know if these instructions are not clear...Please email if you do not understand anything.

Essay Instructions: The topic is about Middle Eastern women for a women's studies class. I intend to show how women are really treated in the Middle East ans clear the blur of the stereotypes and misconceptions that go on in that part of the world. Also, how the religion of Islam plays a critical role in their lives and its relationship to other things. How wearing a scarf affects their confidence, their sense of security, and the way they're judged by others. This is mainly a term paper about women, emphasizing on the details mention above. I appreciate it!

Essay Instructions: Paper format:
The paper must be a minimum of five pages long, double spaced in 12 point font with 1 inch margins on all sides of the pages. All resources cited in the paper must be properly noted using MLA format and a Works Cited page must be appended to the end of the paper. The paper needs to be page numbered, titled, and your name, the class, the date and your TA’s name need to appear on the first page of the paper or on a separate title page if you create one. Very limited use of the personal pronouns “I” or “My” and so on will be allowed as this paper requires some personal input and interpretation of the literature involved.
¨You may not use Wikipedia or any subscription-required websites as resources for this paper. ¨You must have at least two sources in addition to the sources that come from this class, both may be online sources BUT they must be reliable. Append printouts of the websites you do use to the back of the paper, after the Works Cited page.
¨I have placed items on reserve at the library to aid the paper writing process such as anthologies of poetry, general Middle Eastern literature texts, and so on, thus a visit to the Reserves area in the Main Library would be fruitful.

Instructions:
There are several paper topics to choose from; write about only one. Do not combine topics. ¨There are no rewrites allowed for this paper, so do a preliminary draft or partial draft and have your TA or myself read it to avoid mistakes and ensure a higher grade on this assignment. You must hand in a draft with a realistic amount of time for the TA to comment on the paper and for you to complete it by the stated deadline for the assignment.
¨Do not summarize the literature in your papers, your audience can be assumed to have read it all as well. In the event the topic you choose requires you to look at additional pieces of literature that you then wish to comment on (e.g. a poem or poems of a chosen poet) it is advisable to append the poems to the back of paper as attachments.

I. Poetry
Option A: Middle Eastern poets often write poetry that describes the joy and the struggle of writing poetry. They often try to convey the responsibility they feel to write about their nation’s or their people’s difficulties. This can be seen in some of the poetry we have read for this class this semester. This also comes up in the material of other poets. Research the phenomenon of Middle Eastern writers feeling obligated to write about the real events and people around them (as opposed to topics disengaged from real life or their personal experiences) and look at the works of some or all of the following poets in addition to one or more poets read for class and discuss how each poet you chose speaks about the significance of poetry and the role of the poet in a society undergoing change and upheaval.
Ozkan Mert (Turkish)
Taha Muhammad Ali (Palestinian)
Eliaz (Elias) Cohen (Israeli)
Aharon Shabtai (Israeli)
It will be useful to find, if you can, interviews or articles about these authors to get beyond the words of their poems to their motivations and personal histories. Look beyond Google and see what you can find out about poetry and poetry writing by using library-provided databases such as Academic Search Complete, General Onefile and so on.

Essay Instructions: The paper should include a thesis statement, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Research Naguib Mahfouz (Egyptian), Orhan Pamuk (Turkish), and Elif Shafak (Turkish). These are all middle eastern writiers that had influence. Here are 3 video clips to help you with the research.

Naguib Mahfouz:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z3IKuWbSQwE

Orhan Pamuk:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2M_EK6uGZCU

Elif Shafak:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7217653


You have to be specific in your discussion of those writers; i.e. you have to refer to those artists and talk about their specific experiences.