The HUM2020 Cultural Awareness Essay is designed to evaluate your understanding of Florida Gateway College’s Cultural Awareness General Learning Outcome: Students will explain how aspects of culture relate to the human experience.
As we have discussed throughout this course:
The arts are an important aspect of culture and are unique among the humanities in their ability to express values, with values being part of the human experience. We have grouped values into five specific types: individual, societal, religious, political, and environmental.
All art disciplines express the human experience in some way, shape, or form. We have focused on three fundamental art disciplines: the visual arts (specifically painting and sculpture), literature (specifically poetry), and music (specifically instrumental classical music).
There are three types of criticism used to analyze art: descriptive (focused on form and subject matter), interpretive (focused on how form transforms subject matter into content), and evaluative (focused on the standards of perfection, insight, and inexhaustibility).
With the above in mind, write an essay in which you:
Discuss the three value types that are most important in your life and explain how each value type is expressed by a specific work of art (from those provided for this assignment, with each work being from a different art discipline) using evaluative criticism.
Your essay must be 1250-1500 words long and should be written in multiple paragraphs, as follows:
1 Write one to two opening paragraphs [at least 250 words] in which you state the purpose of this essay (an introductory sentence is sufficient) and explain which of the three value types are most important in your life. List and discuss your three value types in the same order that you will use them in the following three sections of your essay (see steps 2-4).
2 Write one to two paragraphs [at least 250 words] in which you use evaluative criticism to discuss the ONE provided work of visual art from those below that YOU believe best expresses your first value type. Be sure to justify how your chosen work does this, using relevant discipline-based vocabulary to discuss the work’s perfection, insight, and inexhaustibility.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Hunters in the Snow [Flemish. 1565. Northern Renaissance]
Work (image) as a PDF slide in Canvas
Rembrandt van Rijn: Self-Portrait [Dutch. 1659. Baroque]
Work (image) as a PDF slide in Canvas
Jean-Antoine Houdon: George Washington [American. 1788-92. Neoclassicism]
Work (image) as a PDF slide in Canvas
Aaron Douglas: Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through Reconstruction [American. 1934. Modernism]
Work (image) as a PDF slide in Canvas
Isamu Noguchi: Kouros [Japanese-American. 1945. Modernism]
Work (image) as a PDF slide in Canvas
3 Write one to two paragraphs [at least 250 words] in which you use evaluative criticism to discuss the ONE provided work of literature from those below that YOU believe best expresses your second value type. Be sure to justify how your chosen work does this, using relevant discipline-based vocabulary to discuss the work’s perfection, insight, and inexhaustibility.
Alexander Pope: “The Universal Prayer” [English. 1738. Neoclassicism]
Work (full text) at the Poetry Foundation
William Wordsworth: “The Solitary Reaper” [English. 1807. Romanticism]
Work (full text) at the Poetry Foundation
Paul Laurence Dunbar: “The Haunted Oak” [American. 1900. Modernism]
Work (full text) at the Poetry Foundation
Robert Frost: “Birches” [American. 1916. Modernism]
Work (full text) at the Poetry Foundation
Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Dirge Without Music” [American. 1928. Modernism]
Work (full text) at the Poetry Foundation
4 Write one to two paragraphs [at least 250 words] in which you use evaluative criticism to discuss the ONE provided work of music from those below that YOU believe best expresses your third value type. Be sure to justify how your chosen work does this, using relevant discipline-based vocabulary to discuss the work’s perfection, insight, and inexhaustibility.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042; I. Allegro [German. c.1730. Baroque]
Work in Naxos Music Library web player
Georg Philipp Telemann: Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:G2 from Tafelmusik; II. Vivace [German. 1733. Baroque]
Work in Naxos Music Library web player
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 27/2; III. Presto agitato [Austrian. 1801. Classical]
Work in Naxos Music Library web player
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, op. 90; III. Poco allegretto [German. 1883. Romanticism]
Work in Naxos Music Library web player
Bla Bartk: Concerto for Orchestra; II. “Game of Pairs” [Hungarian. 1943. Modernism]
Work in Naxos Music Library web player
5 Write one to two closing paragraphs [at least 250 words] in which you state and discuss your opinion regarding the significance of the arts in expressing the human experience, specifically values. In other words, do you agree or disagree with the textbook’s assertion that the arts are unique and significant for their ability to reveal and/or clarify values? Why?
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GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:
Outside research is NOT permitted for this assignment. While you may review the course material as needed, you may not conduct ANY research on your chosen works. Doing so will be considered academic dishonesty, resulting in your essay earning a “0” grade.
You MAY use the same work(s) for this assignment that you did for the analysis assignment(s). However, since this essay has different requirements, you may NOT simply copy-and-paste from your analysis assignments. Doing so will negatively impact your essay grade.
Your completed essay must be submitted by the posted due date as a PDF file via the submission link for this assignment. Late submissions will not be accepted for any reason, except in the case of significant documented medical and/or personal issues.
Properly punctuate and format work titles as explained in the “Writing About the Arts” guide. After doing so the first time in your writing, you should refer to each work simply by punctuated title OR by artist and work type (e.g., Cole’s painting) not by both.
When discussing any type of art work, avoid such meaningless wording as, “The red gave the painting a pop of color!”. Instead, use descriptive wording, such as, “The artist’s use of red adds a strong contrast to the painting’s overall color scheme of dark browns and greens.”
When discussing a work of literature, you may quote select lines from the work if necessary and if you properly enclose the lines in quotation marks. However, such quotations will NOT count toward the assignment’s minimum word count requirement.
When discussing a work of music, focus on the work’s emotional content rather than on imagery that it inspires (e.g., no “it made me think of a field of flowers”). Also, please do not reference cartoons when discussing a piece of music (e.g., no “Tom & Jerry” or Disney).
