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Dr Tim Barnard | History | NUS | Back to GEM2005/HY2243 |
GEM 2005/ HY2243
FILM AND HISTORY
Feedback on Project 4
Any combination of characters could be said to have done the ‘right thing’. There is no right choice for the project. That being said, some students only discussed one character or movie, and while this is not necessarily ‘wrong’, the analysis that came out of just discussing one character was poorer than others that discussed all three characters. Other students discussed all three by going through each character separately and saying what they thought was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about what they did. This approach too may not have received a good grade because the projects did not draw greater conclusions/comparisons between the three examples and the project question.
For this project, we were looking for an awareness of the contexts in which the characters live, and of the difficulties they face in making choices. Most touched on this aspect of the question in one way or another. Some students also mentioned that the historian/viewer/observer carries her/his own cultural context around with her/him, making the act of passing judgement even more tricky. No matter what you chose, we focused on your analysis and gave points for trying to understand the characters’ contexts, developing issues that pertained to all three characters, and touching on ambiguity.
Breakdown of grades
(for in-between grades, the numeric grade is approximately halfway between one grade and the next, that is “tick/tick plus” means that you received approximately 65%, and so on)
Tick minus 50%
You probably discussed only one film, or you did not answer the project question directly. More explanation needed to your definition of what is "right".... (and not merely because Aristotle said so). The explanations / justifications appeared to be re-narrating the stories back to us. For example, Newland stayed with May and did not chase Ellen, Mookie threw the trash can into Sal's pizzeria window. A lot of description, but little analysis into their minds as to why do you think they did it?
Tick 60%
You probably went through all three characters separately and enumerated what you thought was right or wrong about a key decision that they made. You did not draw greater conclusions/comparisons between the three examples and the project question. You also most likely did not touch on the issue of how what is right depends greatly on which benchmark is chosen.
You tried to bring up different ways in which ‘right’ may be understood and how this affects the answer of the project question. Perhaps you questioned Aristotle’s concept of right and brought out the ambiguities surrounding determining what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. You may have linked this to the difficulties in writing history and how the historian brings along his/her own concepts of right and wrong.
Double tick 80%
Great argumentation and writing of the points mentioned under ‘tick plus’. You did the right thing.
Here is a link to the two best Projects both of which received double ticks so that you can judge the calibre of answer needed for a double tick.
nüü
29 (6%) grade = 80%
ü+/üü
14 (3%)
grade = 75%