Intervention II: Making Anything Relate to Anything

The following trick is designed for desperation level DEFKON 2: You have just over a weekend to write a 10-page paper, or just over a day to write a 5-pager. I'm saving my DEFKON INFINITY (or perhaps DEFKON GLITTER?) jackpot for my first video tutorial, which is currently having technical difficulties due to the fact that the ancient version of iMovie on my 2007 MacBook mysteriously disappeared and I lack the fundage or operating system to get a more recent version, *pity party starts now*, all right. ANYway.

A little backstory for the recreational readers (skip to where it says "Intervention II" if you're actually Defkon-2 Desperate! Apparently anchor links on blogging software are for geriatrics and I can't make one right now):

When I was in college and writing my Romantic Poets papers the day before (or sometimes the morning of) the due date, I certainly didn't fool Dr. Darlington with my florid descriptions of who-knows-what. My college had a policy of not putting letter grades on essays (and yet assigning letter grades to semesters!), but if Dr. Darlington had put a letter on any of my essays, it definitely would have been a B- at best. The thing is, though, I probably didn't even deserve that. I probably deserved an F, because (confession time) I never read more than three words of any of those long, difficult poems. I then sat in class drooling. Then, when it came time to turn in the essays, I'd just choose a couple of stanzas at random and come up with a Hail-Mary pass about them (more about the Hail-Mary pass technique on TheYouAreOnTvTube when I get my video issues ironed out--I promise it will be soon!).

In one way this did not go over well--I had, and still have, an able literary mind and was totes squandering it, in favor of spending my evenings donning a weird mixture of Gap/rave garb (hey, it was the 90s), smoking cigarettes (BAD FOR YOU! I quit after college and never went back! Mom!), drinking coffee (still do that...) and giggling with my friends in the newspaper office or the Café. (Thank gawd no 1996 issues of the Misc. are archived online. I'd have to change my name).

But, in another way, this was a smart maneuver, because like I said, I never read a word for that class until it was time to write a paper, and I was worse than a lump in that classroom (a thousand apologies to Dr. Darlington--I AM REHABILITATED!). And yet, I got a C+ at the final in that class, the second-worst grade of my entire 13-year higher-education career (the worst? A straight C in German Sturm und Drang drama and "manliness"--a genre I actually published on in 2009, belated thanks to Dr. Kassouf)--but one that still enabled me to graduate, get into grad school, survive, etc. In today's grade-inflation world think of that C+ as a B- or B.

Anyway. As you can see, that one semester I got two C's was somehow survived and surpassed, and here I am with a doctoral degree in the very subject I once tanked in, living proof that you can reach your goals: BEEFCAKE! Wait, what? (1997 "South Park" reference, for those not born yet then). ANYWAY. My point is, you students who never read anything and then find yourselves desperate before a paper is due? I WAS ONCE YOU, and sure, I never won any awards during the worst of my slackerdom, but even in my absolute-most-heinous time, I managed to keep from flunking out. If I'd cheated? And gotten caught? Which I probably would have (see here)? Flunked out in disgrace, and what would I be doing now? Probably running a hedge fund, but that's neither here nor there (what does that even mean?). But I digress again.

All right, now finally on to INTERVENTION II. (Here's Intervention I in case you hate scrolling).

What you are going to do here is create a cohesive body out of stuff whose context you don't necessarily understand. You are going to use your lack of knowledge to your advantage, creating weird connections that a more thorough reader would probably never come up with.

Let's say that you randomly flip to a book of poetry and happen upon the following stanza:

I'm just a holy fool
And baby you're so cruel
But I'm still in love with Judas, baby (aaand once again, attribution!)

Let me reiterate that you do not have the time to read the rest of the poem, any of the author's other work, or do any research (let's assume this paper does not require secondary sources), so you're left in the wilderness with only this quote. You now need to turn this one quote into over a page of body text. HOW? Is that even POSSIBLE? Yes, it is.

Here's how, in three easy steps:

1. When in doubt, let Hamlet (and Bo Burnham) be your guide: "Words, words, words." Go down to the word level and do some creative analysis of the individual words the author uses. Go nuts with this. In this example, go crazy with "holy fool." That could mean a lot of things. What are some of them? Explore this! This could take up an entire paragraph. Then do the same with "cruel," and if you're lucky enough to have a reference to a proper name like "Judas," do a quick Wikipedia search and synthesize (DO NOT COPY) some of the best-known facts about this individual (for example, if you mention that Judas was the disciple who betrayed Jesus, you don't need to attribute that because EVERYONE knows this. Well, almost everyone).
2. Then, take all of this fascinating word-level analysis, and use the beautiful tendency of the English language to create the possibility for poetic interpretation and multiple meanings of WHOLE BUNCHES OF CRAP, and relate your newfound close reading to an interesting literary theme that pervades a lot of literature. You can go for something obvious like "gender roles," "attitudes toward death," or "authority," or you can go a little further out and do things like "fetishized violence" or something scholars probably misguidedly call "sexy." (If you use any of these actual ideas, then guess what--you've got to attribute THIS BLOG, you're welcome.)
3. For example, if you want to talk about "holy fool," then you can start brainstorming and say: well, this obviously relates to religious imagery, but also to attitudes toward knowledge and female behavior--CHACHING! Female behavior! What a weird/unique idea!

HOW TO FINISH THIS PAPER in a way that will ensure your prof doesn't want to jump off something tall:

• If you do the above for three quotes, you'll have the body of a 5-pager ready to go in no time. If you do it for 5 quotes, a 7-pager. 7 quotes, a 10er, and so on. 
• Now your last step is to write your conclusion AS PATIENTLY AS POSSIBLE--take a break, even if it's only 10 minutes, then read the rest of your paper and paraphrase your main points in 3 sentences, add a "therefore" and then write your thesis for the first time. 
• Now that you know what you're talking about, TAKE ANOTHER BREAK. Even if it's only for 10 minutes. 
• Now, and only now, you should write your introduction. This intro should be maximum 5 sentences long, and simply detail exactly what you did in the paper in a shortened form. At the end of that paragraph, write something akin to "The following passages will show that ________," and then in the blank, paraphrase the thesis you came up with at the end of your conclusion.

NOTE: Your teacher will recognize this cool BS-ing technique, and probably call you on it, make no mistake. BUT, s/he will begrudgingly accept the fact that you at least tried to have an idea and obviously did your own work, so in today's grade-inflated world I'd estimate, though obviously not guarantee, that this technique could potentially land you in the B-/B/B+ range (or even the A- range if you are a terrific writer, though that'd have to be a seriously lenient school, which is now all of them, so never mind).