Assignment:
For this final short writing assignment, your task is to write a book review. For this review, you may choose any book on a musician on musical figure from the African diaspora in the United States—that is, any Black U.S. musician, past or present. (If you would like to discuss a book on someone/something else related to our class, please speak with me.) Ideally your book will be from the Berklee Library collection so that we know it is a reliable source; if you are interested in a book that we do not have in the library, check with me to make sure that it is suitable for this assignment.
Your review should do more than just recommend the book or not, as in the kinds of book reviews we read in newspapers and magazines. Instead, you should discuss and critically consider the ideas in the book to make an argument about what it says and how it works. This will probably involve summarizing the book’s main ideas and key chapters. It will also require you to analyze those ideas to share what you think about them. You have considerable flexibility in how you go about your review, so feel free to be creative as long as you still engage critically with the book. The only strict requirement about your argument is that at some point you should connect the book you’ve read to broader knowledge about the African diaspora that you’ve gained in this class. Here Download Hereis an example of an (album) review of my own to give an idea of one possibility for this kind of writing (yours will be much shorter, of course).
As in all work for this class, Chat GPT and other generative AI (including translation software) may not be used in any way. Plagiarism of any kind will result in failure of the assignment and potentially the course.
Your essay should be about two double-spaced pages long—approximately 350-500 words.
Submission Requirements:
You must submit your paper in .docx format here on Canvas before the due date. Late work will not be accepted.
Your paper should be properly formatted in Chicago style, complete with appropriate citations and bibliography.
Grading Criteria:
Your grade will be calculated out of 100 points based on the following five categories (20 possible points for each category):
1. Detailed engagement with your chosen book.
Is it clear that you have read the book carefully and do you discuss specific details of the book’s argument?
2. Use of general knowledge about the African diaspora gained in class.
Do you connect your discussion to topics and issues we’ve studied in class?
3. Logic and coherence of your argument.
Does your argument or overall point about your chosen book make sense? Do you cite evidence from the book that supports your point?
4. Clarity of writing.
Is your writing easy to follow and understand? Is it free of errors that might confuse or distract your reader?
5. Proper use of citations and formatting.
Is your paper properly formatted? Do you properly acknowledge the source of all ideas that you have learned from someone else? Do you use Chicago style formatting and citations consistently and correctly?
