British Lit Paper

[aolsux]

So, I am a Junior at Penn State and I am enrolled in a basic prerequisite Brit Lit course this semester. It meets thrice a week, two with the actual professor and one with a Teacher's Assistant (TA). Our only solid assignments come from the TA, and recently it was to write a paper on any subject involving ONE of the works we just finished reading. I chose Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as my story to write about. Instantly, I noticed the similarities between Malovolio's character and the character in another Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing - the character Benedick. Basically, the character is the same besides their ultimate outcome. Blah blah blah, I know no one cares about the content of this paper and I know people want me to get to the point. So, today, I check my email, and my TA emailed me personally telling me that my topic was inappropriate for the paper's guidelines, and cut and pasted it:

"Hi Aaron,

Your paper about Malvolio and Benedick is very interesting, however, this assignment asks that you write your papers on texts that we have read in class. Because we didn't read _Much Ado About Nothing_ in class, I'm going to have to ask you to rewrite you paper. Please stick to texts that we have read *in class*.

Please get this rewrite to me by next Tuesday, November 11. If you have any questions, please let me know."

So, I ask myself...did I not just do that? I talked about Twelfth Night in grave detail, using Much Ado only as supplemental evidence to state my claim, I even cited it correctly. What do I do? I wouldn't get so upset about it, if maybe I a) do not have time to write a whole second paper or b) think my paper is a work of the better part of two afternoons of research and writing. Do I go to my professor and talk about this TA? Do I just type the damn paper? Anal? I don't know what to do and I just thought passing this off to the internet world could elicit some type of response.

[saofan_315]

is there any way you can talk to the prof about your paper?

personally, I think adding in a secondary source for reference can only make your paper stronger

it's definitely bullshit that you have to rewrite it

[Poochemist]

is there any way you can talk to the prof about your paper?

personally, I think adding in a secondary source for reference can only make your paper stronger

it's definitely bullshit that you have to rewrite it

I agree. If you professor is reasonable, he/she will accept that paper topic. Take it up directly with the professor. Very strange coming from a TA, since those are usually people who have a shitload of papers to write/grade themselves.

[aolsux]

Yeah, it's the oddest college-level teacher experience to date. I even honestly can say, it is a solid paper. Haha, yesterday, right after typing this thread up, I took the bus to campus and my TA for the class entered the bus. I don't think she recognized me with my aviator sunglasses on. Still, I wouldn't of talked to her because I really pissed at that moment. I am on a fulcrum of decisions right now, but I think I am going to try to talk to my prof tomorrow some time.

[Dre Okorley]

Ugh. BLit can be really boring a lot of the time. I was not at all impressed by the Brontes.

[odizzle_word]

From my experience, when professors say to write a paper about ONE text, that means they want an in-depth close reading. I don't know what your exact thesis is, but from your description above, it sounds like just a compare/contrast between Malvolio and Benedick. I mean, talking about character is all right in papers, but unless you talk about what a character contributes to the story and how he does it, not just how a character is similar to another one, the paper needs work.

I actually agree with your TA about your topic not sticking to the 1-text rule if your thesis is about how two characters from different texts are similar, but it's a dick move to make you rewrite the whole thing. A paper's a paper, whatever.

[aolsux]

yeah, so this thing is due in two days and I don't know what to write about. Anyone ever read Twelfth Night and know a good topic?