Sabi Example

Mid-Term Examination Topics

Make your choice between these two topics for your Mid-Term Examination. Comprehensive Examination details are in the LIBS 7026 Mid-Term post. Keep in mind that all of the material and ideas referenced by each of the two topics is directly and entirely from lecture.

1. The Innocent Traveller is a story, or a diary, or an history, or an autobiography, or all four of these at once, or something else entirely, of the birth of our city of Vancouver; originally called "Terminal City". Use your essay to detail how the passage of the book which describes the shipboard encounter between Annie and the American actor is used by its narrator to explain how that book itself came to be written. You will probably want to structure your argument on the book's important treatment of Time.
2. Precisely how does Joy Kogawa's Obasan manifest a paradox that is at the foundation of the character of Vancouver? Frame your answer with reference to the expatriot Chinese community in Vancouver at the time that the narrated events in Joy Kogawa's childhood took place.Use specific examples from Obasan to form your explanation.

LIBS 7026 Mid-Term

The Mid-Term Examination is a stay-at-home examination.

The examination requires you to write between 400-600 words, in the basic paragraph form of the essay, on your choice from two available topics.

Your writing will be judged on the following criteria:

• exclusive fidelity to lecture concepts and discussion.
• irrefutable evidence that the course texts were read diligently and ahead of lecture, and that the lecture material was attentively engaged with.
• proper grammar
• proper basic paragraph form.
• clear, succinct, and unique statement of thesis.
• consistent rhetorical arrangement. 
• correct and coherent logical development.
• quotations from the course texts: advised but not required.
• quotations will not need formal citation; however the Instructor will verify them for exactitude.

The length and number of paragraphs that form your Mid-Term will be determined by your structural and dialectic decisions; but, for your guidance, know that the present setting mandates (unless you are an accomplished prose writer) either one or three paragraphs.

The essay will be graded on the assumption that it was written in a maximum window of two-hours (ninety minutes to write, outline, and draft the essay, and thirty minutes to revise.) This is your precise benchmark for the level of quality that your Mid-Term essay should meet. You can of course schedule your work across the open nine-hour assignment window as you see fit.

Course texts, online lecture slides and, most importantly, your own notes from classroom lecture can be used in the Mid-Term. On the honour system, no consultation or contact with anyone else is permitted during the stay-at-home Examination. Your work must be entirely your own; independently done.

The completed essay must be received by e-mail at stephen_ogden@bcit.ca no later than 23:59:59 on February 25th, 2014 in the following form:

•  '7026midtermlastnamefirstname.rtf'.

Mid-Terms will be graded only if they meet the deadline and the precise submission format stipulated above.

The two choices of Examination topic will be released here on the Course Website at 15:00, February 25th , 2014.

Japan Lecture Slides

For understanding Joy Kogawa's Obasan, lecture slides at this link.

The Professional Benefit of the Course

This course is designed to help Vancouver business and technology professionals in two ways.

1.]  The better a manager learns and understands the character of his team, the better the manager. The better the marketer learns and understands the character of the client, the more successful the marketing. The better the technologist understands the character of the potential market for a new product, the more profitable the product research and development.

• Cities each have their unique character and background history, just like your your best friends do. Think of Paris, London, Mumbai, Tokyo, Mexico City, Beijing: we immediately think of each of them in terms of their special identifying character.

Using stories from good writers, LIBS 7027 enables the student to learn and understand the individual character of the City in which they will be practicing their business or technological career. And in this as in many things, knowledge is power.

2.]  Effective reading is an indispensable hard skill in business and technology. The link between reading power and professional power is direct. LIBS 2027 teaches practical techniques for successful reading: strategies and practice in skills for reading:

• in a time-effective manner
• to identify and extract major information and ideas.

Learn Vancouver's character to succeed in your future experience with our City.