CIE100: Common Intellectual Experience - Islamic Mystic Poetry Writing Prompt (10 Points)

Assignment Goals

The goals of this assignment are:

1. To reflect upon the course texts in preparation for thoughtful discussion
2. To organize thoughts into a concise and cohesive response to a targeted question
3. To consider multiple viewpoints about ideas

The Assignment

Please read the questions below and answer them in marginalia form, at about the length of a 1-2 paragraph response. Choose two short passages from the reading and write rich marginal annotations for each one, giving me an observation, a question, and a connection, with the passage you are annotating quoted alongside. Then distill your reading into a single aphorism of your own, and add one counterargument note, supported by a quote, against that aphorism. Submit your annotations and aphorism through Canvas before the start of class.

Marginalia is the default genre for this reading, and it covers the prose portion of Question 1 as well as Question 2. For either of those you may substitute any of the other four genres (analytic, letter, dialogue, marginalia+aphorism, or the Four A’s), as long as the quote and counterargument requirements are met. The remaining question asks for a specific artifact we use in class, so please submit that one in the form described.

If the poems themselves are what’s in your way, How to Read Hard Texts in CIE has a section on reading lyric slowly.

Writing Prompt

1. First, build the evidence log we use in class: choose three quotations from the course booklet, give the poem title for each, and tag each one Ecstasy or Service according to which side of that tension it supports. Then, in prose, choose one of those poems and discuss how the poet describes longing for the divine in the language of human love, whether separation, intoxication, or the beloved. What, precisely, is being longed for, and why might ordinary language be inadequate to express it?

2. Rumi is among the best-selling poets in the United States, yet he is often quoted online with no reference to Islam at all. Find one popular Rumi quotation circulating on social media and compare it with the poems in our course booklet. What is gained, and what is lost, when a text is lifted out of its tradition? Who has the standing to decide?

Submission

Please submit a word processed or PDF document.

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