Papers

Valdosta State University Student Papers

During spring semester 2004 Valdosta State University students from eight English 1102 classes participated in the Georgia Humanities Council grant project "Regional Identity: A Reading, Writing, and Regional Issues Project Using the Works of Janice Daugharty."

Throughout the semester Valdosta State University instructors Diane Howard, Bobbi Warren, Roy Pace, and Marie Hill, VSU Archivist Deborah Davis, and Janice Daugharty worked with students, engaging them in the writing process, conducting literary and historical research on primary sources, regional identity themes, Southern authors, the writer's role as an observer, and writing using regional identity themes.

As part of this project activity, students submitted literary criticism papers for evaluation and several were chosen for this journal. The students whose essays were chosen presented their papers at the Janice Daugharty Festival, a regional writing conference, held on April 29, 2004. The conference was an additional event emerging from the project. The following are paper assignments with links to the students' papers.

Mini-Document Essay

Students enrolled in English 1102 classes taught by VSU Instructor Diane W. Howard during spring 2004 semester, read “Going Through the Change,” Janice Daugharty’s first collection of short stories. After reading the collection, the students explored topics in the stories, relating them to their hometowns or communities. Simply put, the students related the ideas in a literary piece to their own lives, finding points or areas of similarity as well as areas of disagreement. Once they identified points—in agreement or in contrast—the students researched and wrote a mini-documented essay on the subject “Regional Identity.”
Broad Regional Identity topics for the essays included the following:

•       Music

•       Fashion or clothing

•       Children

•       Child rearing

•       Religion

•       Church related activities

•       Religious Beliefs

•       Celebrations

•       Architecture or buildings


•       Transportation

•       Geography

•       Agriculture

•       Water

•       Roles of Women

•       Roles of Men

•       Role of the Mother

•       Role of the Father

•       Community Events

• The Importance of Community

"Dinnertime" by Janell Brocks

"Men: Sexual Predators or Sexually Obsessed?" by Mary Kellerman

"Multi-Tasking Women" by Sarah Sikes

"Speaking in Tongues of Men" by Courtney Sprinkle

"Southern Heritage and Folk life" by Corie Thomas

"Growing Tobacco—South Georgia Style" by Kathy Berger

"Strong Southern Women in My Life and Going Through the Change" by Erin Johnson

"Documented Essay on Child Rearing" by Timothy Jameson Brewer

Argumentative Essay from Three Sources

During the Spring 2004 semester at Valdosta State University, students in B.N. Warren’s English 1102 classes were assigned an argumentative essay of five pages utilizing three short stories as primary academic sources. The stories that the class read were: “Brother Beetle” by Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Source” by Alice Walker, and “Dogs in a Pack” by Janice Daugharty. After studying how authors incorporate universal concepts like Christ-figures, symbolism, journeys, metamorphoses, etc., in their work, the students were asked to find and respond in essay form to the three stories. The most common organizational form was comparative essay, but there was also the option of argument (persuasive writing) or example. The following paper, “The Clodhopper Effect” by Jessica Soady, utilizes the feminist theory of gender-based characteristics to examine the central male characters in the three stories.
"The Clodhopper Effect" by Jessica Soady

Research Paper Using the Works of Janice Daugharty

Students in two 1102 classes taught by VSU Instructor Roy Pace during spring 2004 semester read one or more books or short stories by Janice Daugharty and developed an argument for a research paper based on the question: Has the immigration of people from the North and other places and the impact of influences like television begun to threaten southern culture and southern literature? Daugharty's works were used as primary sources. Secondary sources included discussions of southern culture, statistical materials showing changes in the demographics of the South, and observations of impacts on southern literature.
"Stereotypical South" by Rachel Keown

"Don’t Apologize" by Porsche Collier

"If Only They Understood" by Lindsay Crosby

Sponsored by the Georgia Humanities Council

Last Updated June 3, 2004 by Amy Warren