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AA100 The Arts Past and Present

Assignment Booklet
February 2010 Contents
1 Introduction 2 Preparing your assignment 3 Plagiarism 4 Completing and sending in your assignments 5 When your assignments come back 6 Grading criteria 7 At the end of the course 8 Special circumstances 9 After the course Assignment 01 Assignment 02 Assignment 03 Assignment 04 Assignment 05 Assignment 06 Assignment 07 End-of-course assessment 2
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Copyright 2010 The Open University Printed in the United Kingdom

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Introduction

This booklet contains all the assignments which will you will be expected to complete on The Arts Past and Present (AA100). Before reading it, it would be helpful to make sure that you are familiar with the Course Companion. These assignments have three different functions. First, they give you an opportunity to put into practice the knowledge and skills that you have been developing on the course. Secondly, they allow your tutor to give you feedback on what you have produced. Writing assignments and making use of your tutors feedback will play a key role in your progress. Finally, grading your assignments allows your tutor to assess your progress and to make sure that you have reached the level of achievement that you need to pass the course. On The Arts Past and Present, there are seven assignments to be done as you work through the course materials. Your tutor will grade these seven assignments and provide you with feedback on your work. (In Open University documents, you will find that assignments of this kind are usually referred to as tutor-marked assignments or TMAs).

Five of these assignments call directly on the skills and knowledge that you have been developing as you work through the course materials. These assignments have been designed to take you in gradual stages from relatively short, focused exercises on a specific object or text to more substantial essays. The remaining two assignments invite you to take a step back to focus on the ways in which you study and write. These reflective assignments aim to foster skills and habits that will help you to succeed in your studies, both on this course and beyond.

The course concludes with a final assignment, which is called an end-of-course assessment. (This is usually referred to as an ECA in other Open University documents.) The end-of-course assessment for The Arts Past and Present takes the form of a 2000 word essay, and requires you to draw together material relating to a number of different disciplines. Your end-of-course assessment will be graded by a different tutor, who will also provide some feedback on your essay. Please note that The Arts Past and Present has no examination. Before you start work on your first assignment, please read Sections 2 to 9 of this booklet, which contain important information about presenting and submitting your assignments and dealing with feedback. You will also find information about how your work will be graded and how your overall result will be determined. The assignment questions and cut-off dates (the dates by which your assignments need to be submitted) can be found at the end of this booklet. At certain points, you will be referred for more detailed information to two other booklets: the Course Companion and the Assessment Handbook. The Assessment Handbook is a booklet which contains general information about assessment on all Open University courses. You can access it online at your StudentHome page on the Universitys website at www.open.ac.uk/students.

Students with a visual or aural impairment


Whenever an assignment requires skills in visual or aural analysis, an alternative question will be set so that you do not need to refer in detail to visual or aural material. If this is relevant to you, please contact your tutor, who will request an alternative assignment from your regional office.

Preparing your assignment

For some assignments you will need to write essays and for others short, analytical answers. Please refer to the Course Companion for detailed advice about how to tackle assignments. In addition to the guidance given there, you should bear in mind the following points.

Guidance notes
You will notice that every assignment is accompanied by guidance notes. These notes do a number of things.

They tell you what the assignment aims to assess. They provide some suggestions about how to interpret and approach the question. They point you to relevant material in the course book and audiovisual resources: this is the material on which you should draw in answering the question.

It is worth noting that your tutor will take account of the guidance notes, as well as the question, in evaluating your work. So it is important for you to read the notes carefully and to take account of them as you plan your answer. Nevertheless, where the notes mention approaches that you may wish to take, or issues that it might be helpful to consider, they should be read as making suggestions only, not as laying down requirements. Only when the notes specify that there is some approach that you should or must take to the question should they be read as laying down a requirement.

Understanding the question


The most important part of the assignment is the question itself. Before you start work on your assignment, you need to think about the question and what exactly you are being asked to do. You need to ensure that your answer addresses the question directly. Different questions require different responses. For example, if the question asks Why did such a thing happen? you should answer that it happened because. If the question asks you to compare and contrast two texts, your answer should show the points at which the two texts are similar, and those at which they differ. Listed below are some of the terms most commonly used in assignment questions: analyse to analyse a text or an argument is not simply to describe it, but to identify its most important elements, and to show how they work together to produce a certain effect or support a certain conclusion. assess to assess a statement or a document is to make a judgement about it a judgement that is supported by evidence.

compare identify similarities and differences.


contrast bring out differences.
discuss explore a topic, statement or text from several angles, showing that
you understand its implications.
evaluate to assess the value of a document or an artefact as evidence for
something, or to assess the truth of a certain statement.
examine look closely at a topic, statement or text, exploring its significance
and implications.
explain interpret and give reasons for.

Answering the question


What makes for a good assignment answer? The grading criteria set out in Section 6 indicate the qualities that your tutor is looking for. A good answer

answers the question directly, without introducing irrelevant material is well organised and has a clear structure uses language clearly and precisely is supported by evidence and argument shows a good understanding of the course materials and how they relate to the question.

For example, suppose that you are asked to describe a Czanne painting. You should not begin by giving a summary of Czannes life story, or a history of French art. Just concentrate on describing the painting. As you write, try to make it clear to your reader what the purpose of each sentence and paragraph is, and how they connect together. Try not to use vague or impressionistic terms, and keep an eye on the length and shape of your sentences. You should support what you say about the picture by referring to particular features of the painting or by drawing on further evidence, especially evidence that you have found in the course materials. The grading criteria specify that a good answer will demonstrate that you understand the course materials. This does not rule out making use of additional materials that you have found in books or online. But we do not think that this is necessary to achieve a top grade. In addition, the grading criteria make it clear that you can be given credit for taking an independent or critical approach to the course materials. Once again, though, we do not think that it is necessary to do this in order to achieve a top grade at Level 1. You can find detailed advice about how to write assignments in the Course Companion, and we strongly advise you to consult that advice before writing Assignment 01.

Quotations and references


In writing an essay, you will almost certainly need to quote from or refer to the work of others (including the course materials for The Arts Past and Present) to support your argument or to illustrate your point. It is important to let your reader know where you are quoting from or what you are referring to. This is done in two stages. The first stage is a brief reference in the actual body of your essay. The second stage is to create a bibliography: that is, a list of the works that you have referenced. This should go at the end of your essay. You should use the

author-date (or Harvard) system of referencing, as described in Section 2.9 of the Course Companion. Quotations should be brief and should be used sparingly. It is not a good idea to reproduce long passages from the course materials or related readings. You should always make it clear where a quotation begins and where it ends, either by using quotation marks or, in the case of longer quotations, by presenting the quotation in a separate indented paragraph. (For an example of this, look at Reputations, page 63: the quotation from Rivire is in a separate paragraph which has been indented to mark it out from the rest of the text.) Remember to include quotations when you are counting up the number of words you have used for your answer. If you are quoting or referring to material in one of the course books, state the author(s) of the chapter, the date and the page numbers in brackets immediately after you have quoted from or referred to the material. For example: Pity and fear are the emotions that, according to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, are aroused by the experience of watching a tragedy (Pacheco, 2008, p. 51). If you are quoting from or referring to one of the extracts provided in the resources section at the end of a chapter, give the name of the original author and the date of publication before the details of the course book. For example: Faraday did not view the physical world as an inanimate object to be subjected to scientific analysis but instead as the work of God that manifested its divine origin (Cantor, 1991, in Falconer, 2008, p. 120). If you are referring to a discussion on one of the Audio CDs, DVD ROMs or DVD Videos, you should give the title and date of the resource, and the track number (where applicable). People who constantly question tradition are in danger of reinventing the wheel (Tim Chappell, speaking in Platos Laches a Discussion with Tim Chappell, 2008, track 1). If you are quoting from a source outside the course materials, you should state the name of the author(s), the date of publication and the page numbers. For example: When Plato was writing, there was already an existing tradition of using prose dialogues to explore moral issues (Vlastos, 1991, pp.1512). If you are referring to a website, give the name of the author or of the organisation responsible for the website, and the year in which it was created or last updated. Here is an example: Pugin is important because he made people think in a new way about architecture. (The Pugin Society, 2009). You may sometimes make use of ideas suggested by other students, for example, at a tutorial or on an online forum. This is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, provided that you acknowledge and reference your source. You can cite a contribution to a forum as follows: It might be suggested that Cleopatra was the Madonna of her time (Smith, 9 June 2008). And you can cite a comment made at a tutorial like this: It might be argued that relying on traditional moral beliefs is just lazy (Jenny Smith, in conversation, 19 May 2008).

If you are quoting from or referring to the passage that has been set for an assignment, you can give the authors name and the location of the passage in the Assignment Booklet, like this: Cleopatra kept Antony in constant tutelage (Plutarch, in AA100 Assignment Book, 2008, p.17). Finally, in writing a reflective assignment, you may wish to refer back to one of your own assignments or to your tutors comments on your assignment. Again, you should give the writers name, the date and the page number. If you need to refer back to more than one of your earlier assignments use a letter (a, b, c and so on) after the date to distinguish between them. Heres an example: In my first assignment, I assumed that tradition had no role to play in art (Jones, 2009a, p.2) and my tutor questioned that (Evans, 2009a, p.2). But when I came to write my third assignment, I had come to think that, without tradition, art can have no meaning (Jones, 2009b, p.3). My tutor noticed that my view had changed (Evans, 2009b, p.1). Once you have added references to your assignment, you should create your bibliography, which should appear at the end of your assignment.

Presenting your bibliography


In your bibliography, you should list all the material you have used in preparing your assignment, including all the sources that you have quoted from or referred to, though you do not need to mention face-to-face conversations that you have cited in your essay. Your list should include, as necessary, course books including readings set books, the Illustration Book and references to the DVD ROMs, DVD Videos or Audio CDs. If you have quoted from or referred to other sources, you should list these as well. As a minimum, you need to cover the information needed to understand the reference in your text, including the title and publisher. You might list a chapter of a course book like this: Moohan, E., Jones, N. and Philip, R. (2008) The Diva, in Moohan (ed.) Reputations (AA100 Book 1), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 161-96. You might list an Audio CD, DVD ROM or DVD Video like this: Platos Laches a Discussion with Tim Chappell (2008) (AA100 Audio CD), Milton Keynes, The Open University. A typical format for a book reference is: Vlastos, G. (1991) Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Here is an example of how to list an article in a journal: Ellis, J. (1995) On the Town: Women in Augustan England, History Today, vol. 45, no.12, pp. 20-7. Here is an example of how to list an article that you have found on a website: The Pugin Society (2009) Introduction to the Pugin Society, available from http://www.pugin-society.1to1.org/index.html (Accessed 12 February 2009). And here is an example of how to acknowledge an idea that you have drawn from a discussion with another student on an online forum:

Smith, Jenny (9 June 2008) Was Cleopatra a diva?, message to AA100 tutor group forum. Here is an example of how you might list the passage that was set for the assignment: Plutarch, Life of Antony, 2930; quoted from Plutarchs Lives, vol. 9, trans. Bernadotte Perrin, The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press and Heinemann, 1968. Finally, for reflective assignments, here is an example of how you might list your own assignments and your tutors comments on your assignments. (Notice again how letters are used after the dates to distinguish between different assignments or sets of comments.) Jones, A. (2009a) AA100 Assignment 01, unpublished work.
Jones, A. (2009b) AA100 Assignment 03, unpublished work.
Evans, L. (2009a) Script annotations for Andrew Jones AA100
Assignment 01, unpublished work.
Evans, L. (2009b) Assessment summary for Andrew Jones AA100
Assignment 03, unpublished work.
For further advice on setting out references, see the section on presenting your bibliography in the Course Companion. On The Arts Past and Present, we want you to get into the habit of always recording the sources you have used to prepare your work. As you move on to higher level courses, you may be asked to use particular referencing systems that are suited to the subject you are studying.

Word lengths
Each assignment question states how long your answer should be. The word limit includes quotations and references but does not include the bibliography. It is a good thing to be able to make your points concisely, and you will not lose marks simply because your answer is a little shorter than the maximum length. In contrast, you must not exceed the word limit. The task set by an assignment is to answer the question in a certain number of words, so if you have exceeded the word limit, you have not carried out the task that you have been set. The first time you submit an answer that is substantially (more than 10 per cent) over length, your tutor is asked to remind you of the importance of sticking to the word limit. If you then submit another assignment that is more than 10 per cent over length, your tutor will deduct 7 marks from your grade. For answers that are very seriously over length, the penalty may be higher.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the deliberate use of someone elses words or ideas without proper acknowledgement. Like all academic institutions, the Open University regards this as entirely unacceptable and takes cases of plagiarism very seriously indeed. If you plagiarise someone elses work unintentionally, your tutor will advise you on how to avoid making the same mistake again. You should make sure that you understand and act on your tutors feedback. However, if there is evidence that you have plagiarised intentionally or in the face of your tutors advice, marks will be deducted, and you may be awarded a mark of zero.

We appreciate that students new to academic work may not always realise what counts as plagiarism. You will find detailed advice on what constitutes plagiarism, and on the benefits of good referencing in Section 2.9 of the Course Companion. Please do spend some time reading through that section of the Course Companion now. You can also find helpful advice on the Developing Good Academic Practice website at http://learn.open.ac.uk/site/DGAP001. Finally, there is also further advice on avoiding plagiarism in the Assessment Handbook (Appendix 1). But if you are in any doubt about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult your tutor. In order to help us to guard against plagiarism, you should not circulate your assignments or even your essay plans to other students. When you participate in online forums, you must not post your assignments on the site, either before or after the submission date. This does not mean that you should not discuss your work with other students. You may well wish to discuss how you plan to approach the assignment, which positions you intend to adopt, which examples you intend to use, and so on. But if you draw on the ideas of another student in writing your assignment, you should acknowledge this and provide a reference. It is worth bearing in mind that AA100 assignments will be processed through plagiarism detection software that can detect copying between students, no matter which tutor group they are assigned to, as well as answers that copy from the course materials. Finally, there have been cases in the past where students have bought their essays from websites that claim to offer custom-made answers. This is cheating and, like other forms of copying, it can be detected by plagiarism detection software. It will not help you progress in your studies and it may affect your ability to study with the Open University in the future. Remember that the work you submit on The Arts Past and Present as on all university courses must be your own.

Completing and sending in your assignments

Should you submit all your assignments?


One of the main purposes of the assignments on any course is to help you to pace your study. However, there may well be situations in which you fall behind or find yourself having to skim a particular chapter to catch up. This may mean that you are unwilling to submit one of the assignments because you feel you will not give of your best. However, it is always in your interests to send in an assignment: not only will you receive feedback from your tutor, but even a poor grade will improve your overall result. If, for any reason, you do not submit an assignment, you can only be awarded a zero for that assignment. If you do fail to submit one of the first six assignments, this will not necessarily mean that you will fail the course, provided that the grades for your other assignments are high enough to compensate. If you think that you may be unable to submit one of the first six assignments, you are strongly advised to contact the Learner Support Team at your Regional Centre to check what this might mean for your overall result. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that Assignment 07 and the end-of-course assessment are both compulsory: you cannot pass the course without submitting both these two pieces of work unless there are special circumstances that prevent you from doing so (see Section 8).

Submitting Assignments 0107


At the beginning of each question, we give you the date by which your assignment should reach your tutor; we strongly encourage you to keep to these dates. If you think you will be unable to complete an assignment by the cut-off date, you should follow the procedures for the late submission of assignments outlined in the Assessment Handbook (Section 2.5). Please note, however, that in the case of Assignment 07, your tutor can grant only a limited extension and can do so only in exceptional circumstances. This is because Assignment 07 is the last assignment on the course. If you think that you will be unable to complete Assignment 07 by the cut-off date, you should contact your tutor as soon as possible. You are expected to submit your assignments electronically. In exceptional circumstances for example, if your computer breaks down or if you have a disability that means that you are unable to use the Electronic TMA system you should consult your tutor. In these circumstances, your tutor may allow you to submit your assignment on paper.

Electronic submission
In preparing your assignment, please leave wide margins, so that your tutor has space to add comments, and use double spacing. To submit electronic assignments, select eTMAs on your StudentHome page and follow the instructions. The eTMA system allows you to submit a dummy assignment (TMA 00) early in your course, before you submit any real assignments. This allows you to test your access to the system, the software you will be using to submit your assignments and to familiarise yourself with the actual process of submitting an assignment. It also enables your tutor to check that the format in which you will be saving your assignments is compatible with his or her own computer software. If you havent already had a go at submitting a dummy assignment, it would be a very good idea to try it now. Further details on how to use the eTMA system can be found in the booklet Using the Electronic TMA system: A Guide to eTMAs for Students. But please note in particular the following points: 1 Your file should be in one of the following formats:

Microsoft Word document (.doc file extension) Note: If you are using Word 2007 you must use the compatibility mode to save as a Word 97-2003 document. Microsoft Write document (.wri file extension) Rich text format (.rtf file extension) Text file (.txt file extension) Word Perfect 5.1 (or earlier document) (.doc or .wpd file extension) Files saved in other formats may not be accepted, since your tutor may not be able to open them. In particular, please note that an Open Office document (file extension .docx) is not an acceptable format. For more information about this please see Using the Electronic TMA system, page 6.

2 Your assignment must be submitted as one file. If you try to submit more than one file, the second submission will over-write the first file. For more information about this please see Using the Electronic TMA system, page 7.

Paper submission
If you are unable to submit an assignment electronically and have your tutors permission, you may write, type or print your answer on A4 paper, using one side of the paper only. As with all assignments please leave wide margins (say, five centimetres) and use double spacing. If your work is handwritten, make sure it is legible. For advice on how to submit assignments on paper, see the Assessment Handbook, section 2.5.

Submitting your end-of-course assessment


Please note that submission of the end-of-course assessment is governed by a different set of procedures. Your end-of-course assessment must be submitted electronically. As with your other assignments, please be careful to submit your end-of-course assessment as a single file, using an acceptable file format. These are listed on the previous page. It must be uploaded onto the eTMA system by midday on the cut-off date. Four to six weeks prior to the ECA cut-off date we will send an email to your OU email account (or preferred email address) to remind you of the cut-off date and to give you a link to a booklet called Information for Students submitting Examinable Work Electronically. If you do not receive this email, please note that the booklet can be accessed at http://www.open.ac.uk/assessment/pages/eECA submission-info.php. In certain exceptional circumstances, you may be able to submit your end-of course assessment up to three weeks after the cut-off date or to defer submission until the next presentation of the course. Full details are provided in the online booklet mentioned above. However you should note that neither your tutor nor staff at your Regional Centre have the authority to give you permission to submit your end-of-course assessment after the cut-off date. All applications for an extension or deferral must be in writing and must be received at Walton Hall before the cut-off date. The University will not accept telephone requests. You can either write a letter or complete an extension/deferral request form, which is available from either the Learner Support Team at your Regional Centre or from the Projects, Portfolios and Dissertations Office at Walton Hall. Please send your request and supporting documentary evidence to the Assessment Policy Office, P.O. Box 83, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6BF. Alternatively, you can send an email to: Eca-Extension@open.ac.uk. If you are unable to use the Electronic TMA system, the online booklet includes instructions for submitting your assignment by email. If you need further advice about submitting your end-of-course assessment, you should contact the Learner Support Team at your Regional Centre. Dont forget to keep a copy of your end-of-course assessment for your own records.

When your assignments come back

Your assignment will be returned to you with an Assessment Summary, presented on a PT3 form. Your tutor will use this to record your grade and to provide feedback on your assignment. Your assignment will have been given a grade between 1 and 100. (100 is indicated by HU in the grade box on paper PT3 forms.) Where an assignment has more than one part, each part will have been graded separately so that you can see whether you have fared better in one part than in the other, but you will also be given one overall grade.

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Your tutor will have added comments and questions to your work. Please contact your tutor if you cannot see the comments on electronically submitted work. In addition, he or she will have written a report for you as part of your Assessment Summary, commenting on what you have done well and making some suggestions about how you might improve your work. The grade, of course, is the first thing you will look at, but remember that your tutors feedback is more important in the long run, and you should set aside 10 15 minutes to study it. The Course Companion includes useful advice on using feedback to improve your writing. You should also bear in mind that you will need to make use of your tutors feedback in preparing Assignments 02 and 07. You will receive some feedback on your end-of-course assessment, though this will not be at the same level of detail as the feedback you will receive from your own tutor for Assignments 01 to 07. Your essay will not be returned to you.

Grading criteria

Below we have set out the criteria that are used to grade all your assignments and your end-of-course assessment. Your work will be marked at a level appropriate to students who have not previously taken a university-level course in any subject. Tutors will take account of spelling, punctuation, grammar, choice of words and sentence structure if they affect your ability to express your meaning clearly.

85100 (Distinction)

Grades within this band are awarded for work that is well constructed, well-argued and clearly written; which is well supported by evidence or argument; and which shows an intelligent grasp of the course materials. In addition, your work will also show some special distinction in one of more of the following ways:

You presented a particularly clear or forceful argument or a particularly perceptive interpretation; You used evidence in an especially imaginative way. You expressed your ideas in a particularly effective way. You took a critical approach to the material, in a way that was appropriate to the subject matter and went beyond the commentary provided in the course book.

Reflective Assignment 02 Grades within this band are awarded for work that shows you have an intelligent grasp of how to improve or develop your work in response to feedback, evidenced in a creative approach to the changes you have made to your Assignment 01 answer and in a well-constructed, well-argued and insightful reflective commentary. Reflective Assignment 07 Grades within this band are awarded for work that shows you have an intelligent grasp of how to improve or develop your work and your study skills, evidenced in a particularly lucid, broad-ranging or enlightening review of your progress.

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Grades within this band are awarded for work that is well constructed, well-argued and clearly written; which is well supported by evidence or argument; and which shows an intelligent grasp of the course materials. Reflective Assignment 02 Grades within this band are awarded for reworked Assignment 01 answers that show a solid grasp of how to improve and develop your work together with reflective commentaries which provide clear evidence that feedback has been understood. Reflective Assignment 07 Grades within this band are awarded for work that shows a solid grasp of how to improve or develop your work and your study skills, evidenced in a well-constructed and accurate critical review of your progress, supported with solid evidence.

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Grades within this band are awarded for work that uses points and examples provided in the course materials in a way that is relevant to the question. In addition, you will have shown a fairly accurate understanding of this material and used it to make a fairly coherent case (though perhaps with some gaps or irrelevant points) in support of your answer. Reflective Assignment 02 Grades within this band are awarded for answers that succeed in using feedback or advice to improve your work to some extent, together with reflective commentaries which show a fairly clear account of the impact of the changes that have been made. Reflective Assignment 07 Grades within this band are awarded for critical reviews that draw on relevant evidence to provide a fairly clear and thoughtful review of your progress.

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Grades within this band are awarded to work that presents some relevant course material in a reasonably clear way and shows some understanding of how this material relates to the question. In addition, you will have provided some argument or evidence for your answer. But you may not have put it together in a coherent way. Reflective Assignment 02 Grades within this band are awarded to answers that use feedback or advice to make some improvement to your work, though with only limited success, together with reflective commentaries that are rather unclear, narrow or lacking in thought. Reflective Assignment 07 Grades within this band are awarded to critical reviews that draw on some relevant evidence but are rather unclear, narrow or lacking in thought.

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Grades within this band are used for work that presents some relevant course material, but in a way that is so inaccurate or incoherent that it suggests that you have understood only a part

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of this material; or which is so unclear that it is not possible to tell whether or not you have understood more than a part of it. Reflective Assignment 02 Grades within this band are awarded to answers that make some use of relevant feedback or advice, but in a way that suggests that you have only a limited grasp of what it means or how it applies to your own work, together with reflective commentaries that are very unclear, narrow or lacking in thought. Reflective Assignment 07 Grades within this band are awarded to critical reviews that draw on some relevant evidence but are very unclear, narrow or lacking in thought. 1529 Grades within this band are used for work that presents only a very small portion of the relevant course material; or for work which presents some relevant course material, but in a way that is so inaccurate or incoherent that it suggests that you have understood only a very small part of this material. Work in this band is often scant or severely under length. Reflective Assignments 02 and 07 These marks are used for work that shows:

Little grasp of how feedback or advice might apply to your own work. Little willingness to act on feedback. Minimal engagement with the task of writing a reflective commentary (Assignment 02) or a critical review (Assignment 07). Little insight into personal progress as a student (Assignment 07).

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Grades within this band are used for work that makes only a poor attempt to answer the question without reference to the course material; or which presents some relevant course material, but in a way that is so inaccurate or incoherent that it suggests that you have not understood this material. Work in this band is often scant or severely under length. Reflective Assignments 02 and 07 These marks are used for work that shows:

No grasp of how feedback or advice might apply to your own work. No willingness to act on feedback. No engagement with the task of writing a reflective commentary (Assignment 02) or a critical review (Assignment 07). No insight into personal progress as a student (Assignment 07).

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Tutors will grade your work according to these grading criteria, together with advice given on particular assignments. Sometimes, however, they will need to exercise some discretion in deciding how to apply the criteria to a given piece of work.

At the end of the course

The AA100 Examination and Assessment Board has the task of ensuring that your work has been marked according to a fair and consistent standard, and of recommending your overall course result. The Board consists of the team of Open University staff who set the assignments and one or more external assessors (independent senior academic staff from other UK universities). Your overall result will be considered by the Board at an award meeting. Depending on the grades that you have achieved on Assignments 01 to 07 and on your end-of-course assessment, you will be awarded a distinction, a pass or a fail. The criteria for achieving a pass or a distinction on the course are explained below.

How is your overall result decided?


Your overall result is determined by two factors:

your overall continuous assessment score the grade awarded for your end-of-course assessment.

Your overall continuous assessment score is the weighted average of the scores that you receive for Assignments 0107. The weighting for each assignment is as follows: Assignment 01 Assignment 02 Assignment 03 Assignment 04 Assignment 05 Assignment 06 Assignment 07 10% 10% 15% 20% 15% 20% 10%

Under certain exceptional circumstances, the Examination and Assessment Board may make an adjustment to your overall continuous assessment score or your overall result. This might happen, for example, if your tutors grading is found to be out of line with the standards expected by the Board, or if a serious problem has arisen with an assignment question. For this reason, you cannot be absolutely sure what your overall continuous assessment score is until you receive your final result. To pass the course:

You must have submitted Assignment 07. Your overall continuous assessment score must be at least 40 per cent. The grade awarded for your end-of-course assessment must be at least 40 per cent.

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Please note that, when it comes to passing the course, the grade awarded for your overall continuous assessment score and your end-of-course assessment are of equal importance. To be sure of being awarded a distinction:

You must have submitted Assignment 07. Your overall continuous assessment score must be at least 85 per cent. The grade awarded for your end-of-course assessment must be at least 85 per cent.

You may be awarded a distinction if you are close to achieving these criteria and the Examination and Assessment Board judges that this is appropriate given the standards achieved on assignments 01 to 07 and on the end-of-course assessment. In this situation, the Examination and Assessment Board will give greater weight to your overall continuous assessment score than to the grade awarded for your end-of-course assessment: the weighting will be 75%: 25%.

Special circumstances

The University allows you to inform the Examination and Assessment Board of any circumstances that have seriously affected your performance in assignments. The Board can give only limited weight to this information, but if there is evidence that your performance has been seriously affected, the Board does have the power to allow you to pass even though you have not met all the requirements listed in the last section. It is important to let us know of special circumstances affecting any of your assignments; but it may be crucial if circumstances have prevented you from submitting Assignment 07 or from submitting or doing yourself justice on the end-of-course assessment. If circumstances have prevented you from submitting either of these pieces of work altogether, it is essential that you let us know. Your tutor cannot submit this information on your behalf. The more evidence (a medical note, for example) you can supply to support your case, the stronger it will be. If your circumstances have affected your performance on Assignments 01-07, you should submit a PT39 form. PT39 forms can be obtained from the Learner Support Team at your Regional Centre and must be returned to them no later than 14 days after the cut-off date for Assignment 07. If, exceptionally, you cannot comply with this ruling, contact your Regional Director, giving your reasons. If your circumstances have affected your performance on the end-of-course assessment, you should submit an E39P form, which you can find in the Information for Students Submitting Examinable Work booklet. You should return it to the address on the form to arrive no later than seven days after the cut off date for the end-of-course assessment. In either case, please read the instructions on the form and keep proof that you have posted it. Further information about special circumstances can be found in the Assessment Handbook, Sections 2.10 and 3.4.

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After the course

Finding out your result


You will be informed of your result by post after the AA100 Assessment Board has met. You will be given your overall result and two scores: 1 The overall continuous assessment score (OCAS) is the weighted averages of the grades you achieved on Assignments 0107. 2 The overall examination score (OES) is the grade awarded for your end-of course assessment. Please do not ask your regional centre, tutor or course team members for your results. Information about results cannot be given over the telephone or by email. After course results have been sent out by post you will be able to find your result on your StudentHome page on the Universitys website at www.open.ac.uk/students. You are strongly advised to ensure that you are able to sign in to view your StudentHome page before the issue of course results. Detailed on-screen help is provided.

Pending results
For a few students each year the Assessment Board is unable to come to a decision about the course result to be awarded. If this happens to you, you will be given a pending result. There are various reasons for this: for example, an assignment score might be missing from your assessment record. Urgent action is always taken by the University to provide the Board with the information it needs so that a final result can be sent to you as soon as possible.

Course result queries


If you want to query your course result, you should write to the Head of Examinations and Assessment, The Open University, PO Box 720, Hammerwood Gate, Kents Hill, Milton Keynes, MK7 6ZQ within four weeks of receiving your result. Before doing so, please read carefully Section 4 of the Assessment Handbook which explains how course results are awarded, and how to query your result or make a formal appeal to the Complaints and Appeals Office.

Resubmission
If you fail to submit Assignment 07 you cannot pass the course, unless there are special circumstances that prevented you from doing so. Assignment 07 cannot be submitted at a later date. If you have failed to submit your end-of-course assessment or if it has been awarded a grade of less than 40 per cent, you may be eligible to (re)submit it at a later date. This will involve choosing from a fresh set of questions, rather than revising a piece of work that you have already submitted. Whether or not you are awarded this opportunity depends upon your circumstances, including your grades. Your course result letter will tell you if you have been awarded the opportunity to resubmit your end-of-course assessment, and a new Assignment Book and advice on how to resubmit will be sent to you after the issue of course results.

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Assignment 01
Cut-off date: 12 March 2010 This assignment is in two parts: you should answer both parts of the assignment. You should write no more than 1000 words in total: 500 words for each part. Your tutor will give you a grade out of 50 for each answer. These will be added to produce a grade out of 100 for the assignment as a whole. Please write out the question in full at the head of each answer. However, where a piece of text has been set out for you to comment on, there is no need to reproduce it. Before beginning work on this assignment, please make sure that you have read the advice on preparing your assignment and on plagiarism in Sections 2 and 3 of this booklet.

Part 1 Cleopatra
Compare and contrast the depictions of Cleopatra in the 1934 and 1963 movies as shown and discussed on the DVD Video. Then, explain how the similarities and differences between these depictions of Cleopatra reflect the historical circumstances in which they were created. Your answer should be no longer than 500 words.

Guidance Note
The main aim of this question is to test your ability to examine closely and interpret modern visual images of the ancient world and to relate these depictions to the historical and social contexts in which they were produced. To complete this task you will need to view the DVD segments on the 1934 and 1963 Cleopatra movies several times carefully (you may also want to read the transcript for the DVD Video which can be viewed on the course website). Whilst viewing this material you may want to think about such issues as the costume and staging of the scenes and what impression of Cleopatra these give; the way Cleopatra is depicted in any promotional material such as posters or trailers for the movie and what expectations this sets for the audience; and the nature of the dialogue in the movies and how this represents Cleopatra through her interaction with other characters. You may find some elements of the depiction of Cleopatra have remained fairly constant and others have changed quite a lot. Explain why you think some things have changed and some have stayed the same. How might these depictions be related to the historical and social circumstances of the 1930 and 1960s? You may also find it useful to consider Section 1.5, Reassessing Cleopatra, in the Cleopatra chapter. This section provides some thoughts on the issues involved in modern interpretations of Cleopatra and the motivations behind them. Writing to a tight word limit of 500 words is not easy. You need to be very clear about what the question is asking you to do. You should

compare and contrast these two depictions of Cleopatra explain similarities and/or differences in terms of the historical circumstances in which these depictions were produced.

To answer the question successfully you will need to make sure that you answer both elements of the question.

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Part 2 Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus


Read the following passage from Marlowes Doctor Faustus. Discuss Marlowes use of language in the passage and how it contributes to the characterisation of Faustus. Your answer should be no longer than 500 words. GOOD ANGEL: Faustus, repent yet, God will pity thee. EVIL ANGEL: FAUSTUS: Thou art a spirit. God cannot pity thee. Who buzzeth in mine ears I am a spirit? Be I a devil, yet God may pity me; Ay, God will pity me if I repent. Ay, but Faustus never shall repent. My hearts so hardened I cannot repent. Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven 20 But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears: Faustus, thou art damned! Then swords and knives,
Poison, guns, halters, and envenomed steel
Are laid before me to dispatch myself;
And long ere this I should have slain myself 25
Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.
Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexanders love and Oenones death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp 30
Made music with my Mephistopheles?
Why should I die, then, or basely despair?
I am resolved Faustus shall neer repent.
Come, Mephistopheles, let us dispute again
And argue of divine astrology. 35
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon?
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?
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EVIL ANGEL: FAUSTUS:

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Act 2, Scene 3, ll.1338; in John OConnor (ed.) (2003), Doctor Faustus: the A text, Pearson Longman, p.49.

Guidance Note
This close-reading exercise is intended to test your ability to understand and discuss the language of a play. The question asks you to do two things: to discuss how Marlowe uses language in this passage from Doctor Faustus and to consider how this contributes to the characterisation of Faustus. In relation to the first of these, it would be a good idea to read the passage carefully several times, noting any aspects of the language that strike you as significant. Now you need to think about how any poetic techniques shape the meaning of the passage. Do you think the distinctive features of the language you have identified encourage a negative or a positive response to the protagonist, or something in between? 500 words is a tight word limit, so you will need to organise your discussion carefully. Dont try to comment on every aspect of the language; instead concentrate on the features of the extract that strike you as really crucial. Keep your quotations from the passage short and to the point. The key task here is to think about how the language of a play actually works. Remember that your tutor will be looking not for a list of poetic techniques and devices but for a discussion of the passage that shows awareness both of the main features of the language

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and of the way in which these contribute to the way in which Faustus is presented to the audience. There is plenty of relevant material in Book 1, Chapter 2, especially in the section Reading a Renaissance Play (in Section 2.1) and all of Section 2.2. You might also find it useful to listen to this part of the play on the Audio CD. Your Longman edition will give lots of help with the language of the extract.

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Assignment 02
Cut-off date: 16 April 2010

Responding to feedback
The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with an opportunity to reflect on the work that you did for Assignment 01 and to give you some experience of using your tutors feedback to improve your work. Learning from feedback is a crucial part of developing as a student; in many ways, it is the central study skill which this course aims to give you. Your tutor has considerable expertise in marking the work of students new to university level study. This assignment tests your ability to understand and respond to your tutors advice. For Part 1 of this assignment, you are asked to take one of the 500 word answers that you wrote for Assignment 01, and make some changes to it in the light of your tutor's comments. For Part 2, you are asked to write a reflective commentary explaining why you have made these changes. You will receive a single grade for the whole assignment.

Part 1
Look back at the two answers that you produced for Assignment 01, and read carefully through your tutors comments. Remember to check what your tutor has written on the PT3 form as well as the comments in the margins. You should then choose one of your answers to rework. Your answer to this part of the assignment will need to be produced in two stages:

First, you will need to present the original version of the answer that you have chosen to rework. You should include the comments your tutor made on this question, and any relevant comments from the Assessment Summary (PT3). The easiest way to do this might be to use your word-processing programme to copy and paste this material into your answer. You should use subheadings (for example, Original version with comments, Comments from the Assessment Summary (PT3)) to make it clear what everything is. Secondly, you should produce a new draft of your answer, drawing on your tutors comments. You can also draw on the Course Companion and on your own ideas about how it might be improved or done differently. Again, you should use a subheading (for example New draft) to make it clear that this is your new version. This new version should be no more than 500 words.

To give some examples, you might:


change the structure of your answer or of a particular paragraph to make it easier to follow change the way in which you have expressed a particular point to make it clearer or more precise change or add to the points that you made to make your answer fuller, more relevant or more accurate. You might choose to omit one or more points to create space for others. add an in-text reference.

How many changes you should make depends on the size of the changes that you have chosen to make: restructuring a paragraph is a larger task than changing a

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few words or adding a reference. As a rough guide, you might aim to make six or seven small changes to your answer or three or four major changes. You should include a bibliography. As with other assignments, the bibliography is not included within the final word count. Nevertheless, you may decide to make some changes to it in response to your tutor's feedback. If you do that, your tutor will take these changes into account in grading and commenting on your assignment.

Part 2
Once you have produced your new draft, you should write a reflective commentary of between 150 and 200 words. You should use this commentary to identify and explain the changes that you have made. This might involve quoting your tutors feedback, discussing the ways in which you have tried to address it and explaining how the changes you have made improve your answer. You should also identify one element of your writing that you would like to improve or something that you would like to do differently in a future assignment.

Further guidance
This section contains some further guidance about completing this assignment, presented in question and answer form. What if I disagree with one of my tutors comments? It would be best to choose to respond to comments that you agree with. But even if you disagree with a comment, it is worth trying to respond to it. Sometimes this may be a matter of making something clearer (perhaps you did not get your meaning across the first time) or just trying out a different approach. What if my tutor has told me exactly how to change my answer, so that making a change is simply a matter of copying my tutors suggestion word for word? There is obviously nothing wrong with responding to tutors comments by doing exactly what he or she has suggested. But you should make sure that not all the changes that you make are of this kind. Even if your tutor has made a very specific suggestion, it might be worth seeing if there is an alternative way of responding to your tutors comment for example, if it is a matter of phrasing, perhaps there is yet another way of phrasing your point. How will my tutor grade this piece of work? In grading this assignment, tutors will assign roughly equal weight to Part 1 and Part 2. Tutors are not asked to evaluate the standard of the redrafted piece of work that you have produced. Instead they are asked to consider:

your awareness of some of the ways in which a piece of written work can be improved through redrafting the extent to which you have understood, and successfully addressed, the criticisms or suggestions that you have chosen to address, as evidenced in your reworked answer and in your reflective commentary your ability to reflect on your work and to identify areas for future improvement

The grading criteria set out in Section 7 of this booklet include some specific references to the two reflective assignments on the course.

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Planning for Assignment 07


Assignment 02 is the first of two reflective assignments. Once you have your tutors comments on this assignment, you should begin planning for Assignment 07. Begin by reading the description of Assignment 07 later in this booklet. You will note that, in order to complete this assignment, you will need to gather notes and evidence about your work on earlier assignments. You will find it much easier to complete Assignment 07 if you take time to do this at intervals as you work through the course, rather than leaving it all to the last minute.

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Assignment 03
Cut-off date: 14 May 2010 This assignment is in two parts: you should answer both parts of the assignment. You should write no more than 1200 words in total: 600 words for each part. Your tutor will give you a grade out of 50 for each answer. These will be added to produce a grade out of 100 for the assignment as a whole. Please write out the question in full at the head of each answer. However, where a piece of text has been set out for you to comment on, there is no need to reproduce it.

Part 1 The Diva


The passage below is a newspaper review of Maria Callass performance in the role of Tosca. Read it slowly and carefully. After reading this review, listen to the recording of Callas singing the aria Vissi darte from Tosca, to help you understand the style of performance the reviewer is describing. You will find this on Track 6 of the Assessment Material Audio CD. Then answer the question that follows in no more than 600 words. Tosca .Maria Callas
CavaradossiGiuseppe Campora
ScarpiaGeorge London
Sacristan.Fernando Corena
Spoletta...Alessio De Paolis
Angelotti.Clifford Harvuot
Sciarrone.George Cehanovsky
Shepherd.George Keith [Debut]
JailerLouis Sgarro
ConductorDimitri Mitropoulos DirectorDino Yannopoulos
Designer...Frederick Fox
Maria Callas appearance as Tosca last night her first at the Metropolitan illuminated quite a few matters that had been left obscure by her recent interpretations of Norma.1 Thus, on the basis of her present performance this much is sure: her soprano is not big, nor is it of a quality even approaching velvet. Indeed, there are moments, especially in the top register, when the tints in her voice prick the ear like barbs. Also, she has a perceptible wobble and her scale is neither even nor smooth. The question then arises, what does it all mean? And the answer, as I read it, is simply that when Miss Callas is shaken with nerves or is otherwise ill at ease she passes as a perfectly respectable singer of no enormous distinctions; but when she warms to a role, squares her shoulders, digs her nails into her palms and pitches in, she can set a house afire with a single jabbing gesture or a single withering look. Strangely enough, too, last nights performance of the first two acts of Puccinis masterwork quite strikingly revealed both sides of Miss Callas remarkable dual nature. In the first act though she looked like Audrey Hepburn2 and could easily have walked out of a bachelors dream her portrayal was rather pale, her entire manner somewhat vague and unfocused. The grandeur of the part was not with her, and she seemed

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distant, remote, her voice as well, taking on precisely those qualities. In consequence, the electricity native to the act was no brighter than that produced by a five and dime store flashlight. A pity, one thought; Callas is not the Callas we have heard of for so many years. And then, in the roar of applause, the curtain descended. Twenty minutes later it rose again and there for all the world to see, transformed as if by witchcraft, was Maria Callas as she is known to legions of admirers throughout the world. Her voice steadied, its pitch punctured notes like so many tooled arrows, and its color lightened, brightened and finally glowed. But actually there is no need for a further discussion of Miss Callas vocal abilities, since its sound stage is scarcely different from its echo on records. But records, even the best of them, are cold, mechanical devices and Miss Callas is anything but a cold or mechanical creature. In the second act, for instance, she reacted to the hideous net of events gathering around her exactly, I imagine, as any major actress absorbed in playing a part. Her despair at Cavaradossis torture, her revulsion over Scarpias lust, her resignation as she realises that she is lost were all tightly etched in her face; and even her muscles grew visibly tense as she moved from one tormenting scene to another. Despite this, however, Miss Callas is a very feminine Tosca, never an Italian Brunnhilde3 out to beat her way into the listeners sensibility with train-whistle blast of sonority. In fact, a quite convincing argument could be made out of the condition that the sopranos youthful femininity detracts a mite from the more regal, majestic and mature aspects of the role. But, no matter. A singing actress is a joy to behold; and at her best Miss Callas is just such a joy. The remainder of the principals fared exceedingly well which is all the more laudable as Maestro Mitropoulos placed obstacle after obstacle in their way. The orchestra was coarse and loud beyond endurance and the tempos were so sluggish that frequently the opera seemed to be moving in slow motion. Still, Mr. London was a ringing and resonant and darkly evil Scarpia, and Mr. Campora sailed through his lines, even the highest, with the ease of a wind-swept kite. The evening, largely though their efforts was, as a result, a handsome one. And Miss Callas, while her Tosca could by no means be termed spotless, began to grow comfortable on the Met stage and spares not a single effort to prove it.
Jay S. Harrison (1956) review of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, New York Herald Tribune, 16 November; available online at http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm (Accessed 1 July 2009).

Notes: 1 2 3 Norma is another famous operatic role sung by Callas at the Metropolitan Opera House. Audrey Hepburn, a film actress of the 1950s and 60s. Brunnhilde is a notoriously difficult soprano role that requires great stamina from the performer.

Question How does the newspaper review help us to understand Callass reputation as a diva?

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Guidance Note
This question is intended to test your ability to understand a historical source. In particular it asks you to study a newspaper review, in the light of what you have learned about Maria Callas in Book 1, Chapter 6, and to consider what it can tell us about her reputation as an opera singer. The review is of Callass first appearance in the role of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York on 15th November 1956. Her debut at this opera house was just seventeen days earlier in the role of Norma, the work referred to in the first sentence. After reading this review, reread the relevant sections of Chapter 6 relating to Callas and the use of historical documents, noting any areas of endorsement and/or new evidence that informs our assessment of her reputation. In writing your answer, you should make sure that you relate the material in the review to the discussion of Callas and her reputation in Chapter 6. You should also consider the value and reliability of this document for music historians today. The recording of Vissi darte is provided (as Track 6 on the Assessment Material Audio CD) to give you a better idea of the type of performance the reviewer is writing about. In this aria, Tosca is broken with grief having just heard the sound of drums accompanying her condemned lover to the scaffold. She cowers, praying in a corner, watched by Scarpia. We learn that she has lived for love and art, has offered humble prayers to the saints, laid flowers on the altar, and given her jewels to bedeck a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and now asks why God has forsaken her. You are not required to make specific reference to this recording in your answer, although credit will be given if you do so. In particular, you might try to identify one or two aspects of Callass performance that accord with her reputation as a diva: for example, you might think about the dramatic qualities of her performance or the opportunities the aria gives her to display her virtuosity as a singer. You will find some useful guidance on how to listen closely to a piece of music in Section 6.3; however, it is possible to comment on the recording without using the technical language introduced there. You should relate any points that you make to specific material in the review or in Chapter 6. If you wish to refer to a particular moment in the recording, you should identify it by referring to the CD time reference as shown in Section 6.3.

Part 2 Plato on Tradition and Belief


The passage below is adapted from a passage in Platos dialogue the Protagoras. (Some details of the text have been changed.) Protagoras (c.490-20 BCE) claimed to be able to teach aristocratic young men how to achieve personal and political success. In the dialogue, he is presented as denying that virtue is a form of knowledge. In the passage, Socrates investigates the relationship between courage and knowledge. Read the passage below slowly and carefully. Then, in no more than 600 words, answer the questions below. There is no need to worry if you do not understand everything on your first read through: the questions are designed to help you to analyse the passage. Note: the reference to divers who plunge into tanks continues to puzzle scholars. It is not known what the purpose of this activity was, but the discussion makes it clear that it was a dangerous job. PROTAGORAS: My view is that justice, holiness, temperance, wisdom and courage are all parts of virtue, and that four of them resemble each other fairly closely, but that courage is very different from all the rest. The proof of what I say is that you can find many men who are quite unjust, unholy, intemperate, and foolish, yet outstandingly courageous.

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SOCRATES: Do you consider the courageous to be confident? PROTAGORAS: Confident, yes, and keen to meet dangers from which most men shrink in fear. SOCRATES: And do you consider their confidence to be admirable? PROTAGORAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now, do you know which men plunge fearlessly into tanks? PROTAGORAS: Yes, divers. SOCRATES: Is that because they know their job or for some other reason? PROTAGORAS: Because they know their job. And this holds good generally, if thats what you are after. Those with the relevant knowledge have more confidence than those without it. SOCRATES: But have you ever seen men with no understanding of some dangerous occupation who still plunge into it with confidence? Doesnt their confidence involve courage too? PROTAGORAS: No, because their confidence is not something admirable. Those people are just foolhardy. SOCRATES: So, those who are foolishly confident turn out not to be courageous, but foolhardy. Conversely, the confidence of knowledgeable people will be admirable; and, therefore, it is knowledgeable confidence that is courageous.
(Adapted from Plato, Protagoras 349d-c (trans. W. K. C. Guthrie), in Hamilton, E. and Huntington, C. (eds) (1961) The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, p. 342.)

Questions 1 In this passage, Socrates and Protagoras present an argument for the claim that foolish confidence is not the same thing as courageous confidence. How do they argue for this conclusion? 2 There is a second argument in the passage, which might be summarised like this: Premise 1: Premise 2: Courageous confidence is admirable. Knowledgeable confidence is admirable.

Conclusion: So, knowledgeable confidence and courageous confidence are the same thing. Explain, as clearly as you can, why this argument invalid. 3 At the beginning of the passage, Protagoras says that there are many people who are unjust, unholy, intemperate, and foolish, yet outstandingly courageous. Drawing on the discussion of the Laches in the course materials, explain why Plato might have disagreed with this claim, and describe one reasonable objection to Platos views on this issue.

Guidance Note
This part of the assignment draws on your ability to analyse a philosophical argument and on your understanding of some of the philosophical claims and arguments discussed in the chapter on Platos Laches. Of the 50 marks available for this part of the assignment, question (1) is worth up to 5 marks, question (2) is worth up to 10 marks, and question (3) is worth up to 35 marks.

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For questions (1) and (2) you will find helpful material in Book 2, Chapter 1, especially Section 1.7. Good answers to these questions will be as clear and concise as possible. In answering question (1), remember that, although you can rephrase Socrates points, it is a good idea to keep key words the same. You may wish to present the argument as a pair of premises and a conclusion, but you could also explain it in a less formal way. In answering question (2), it is a good idea to begin by explaining what invalid means. If you are finding this question difficult, it is worth trying to invent some other arguments that follow the same pattern: try to find one that has true premises and a silly conclusion. You can then make use of it in explaining why Socrates argument is invalid. You will need to save most of your word allocation to deal with question (3). For this question, you should find helpful material in the chapter (especially Sections 1.9, 1.10 and 1.11), in the first section of the DVD ROM and in the interview with Tim Chappell on the Audio CD (especially Tracks 5, 6 and 7). You do not have space to develop a comprehensive answer, so you should pick just two or three points and try to explain them as clearly and precisely as you can. You are asked to finish by describing one reasonable objection to Platos views. It does not matter whether or not you agree with the objection you describe: the point is to show that you understand what might count as a reasonable objection to Platos views.

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Assignment 04
Cut-off date: 11 June 2010 For this assignment you are asked to write a structured essay of no more than 1200 words. You are also required to submit a brief plan of your essay (see the section on Planning your essay below). You should choose to answer either Option 1 or Option 2. You should make it clear which option you have chosen by writing the question in full at the head of your essay.

Planning your essay


This is the first full-scale essay you are asked to write for this course. Essay writing is central to all the Arts subjects and is an important and useful skill. It does, however, require preparation and practice. Your work on Assignments 01 to 03 has already given you experience of creating and polishing a piece of writing. In producing this assignment, we would like you to think especially carefully about how you plan and structure your writing. To help you to think about this, you are required to submit an essay plan with your answer. This will give your tutor an opportunity to comment on how you approached the question and constructed your argument. Getting feedback on your essay plan will help you to structure future essays. Before starting this essay, you will find it useful to look back at Section 2.8, Working at your own writing, in the Course Companion. You can also find advice on structuring and writing an essay on the OU Skills for Study website at http://www.open.ac.uk/skillsforstudy/ . You should start by creating your essay plan, which should be no more than one side of paper. Writing a plan first will help you to make sure that your essay is clearly structured and focused. Your plan should show how you intend to construct your essay paragraph by paragraph. Each paragraph should deal with a particular stage of your argument. Your plan can take the form of a list, or a mind-map, or any other form you like to use, but it must show clearly the proposed form of your essay. You should indicate by a note or a sentence what is to be in each paragraph. When you come to write your essay, you may find that you begin to deviate from your plan. If this happens you should stop and think about why this is. Is this because you are starting to introduce material that is not relevant to the question or because you are losing the thread of your argument? If so, you may wish to go back and revise what you have been writing. Or is it because, once you started writing, you thought of some additional points to make or found a better way to develop your argument? If so, you might add a brief note to the bottom of your plan, explaining what has happened. Nevertheless, the plan that you submit with your essay should be your original one: your tutor will not expect it to match up with your essay in every detail.

Option 1 Tradition and Dissent in English Christianity


In what ways has Roman Catholicism been an example of both religious tradition and dissent in England? Use some examples from the course material to support your discussion and analysis.

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Guidance Note
This assignment is designed to:

test your understanding of the material about English Christianity in Chapter 3 of Book 2 and in particular the way Roman Catholicism changed in its role and position from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century let you demonstrate that you can be selective with the material and use examples from the wide time scale involved to support an overall position and argument allow you to show that you can understand different points of view and recognise that the material is open to varying interpretations in relation to what is perceived as tradition and dissent and let you make an interpretation of your own and argue a viewpoint regarding the course material.

You are asked to assess Roman Catholicism and how its changing religious and political experiences shaped it in relation to wider Christianity in England. You can argue that it is an example of tradition and that it has remained so or that it has acted as a dissenting force against the consequences of the Reformation and the dominating presence of Protestantism, or you can argue that it is an example of both. You should try to provide a clear argument in relation to the question rather than a descriptive account of what happened to Roman Catholicism during the period you have studied. You should select examples from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century to support your argument. There is no right answer here: as you will remember from sources like Newmans sermon (Reading 3.4) there are differing interpretations of what form of English Christianity represents tradition. You should use sources like this as well as the text and images in the chapter as a whole and the DVD ROM on St Chads Cathedral.

Option 2 Pugin and the Revival of the Gothic Tradition


In what ways did Pugin dissent from tradition? Refer to published texts, works of art and architecture in your answer.

Guidance Note
This question is intended to test your understanding of ideas of tradition and dissent, and your ability to analyse works of art using appropriate critical vocabulary. It also tests your ability to formulate and sustain an argument in a short essay. You may choose to begin to plan your essay by thinking about Pugin and the theme of dissent, or by thinking of two or three specific examples of texts or works that interest you and seem particularly important to the theme of dissent. In your essay you will need to do both. It is good practice to consider specific examples in art history essays, and you will usually receive substantially lower marks if you fail to do this. On the other hand, if you introduce a series of works of art and architecture without a sustaining argument, the essay will be more like a list, and risks being incoherent. Asking yourself what am I trying to say? and how can I illustrate that point? may help you to avoid either pitfall. All three sections of the Pugin chapter are relevant to this essay, and you should draw on two of them. If you wish to comment on the limits of Pugins dissent, or even challenge the view that he dissented from tradition, then you are free to do so, so long as you can support your argument.

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Assignment 05
Cut-off date: 16 July 2010

The Art of Benin


This assignment is in two parts. For Part 1, you should choose either Option A or Option B. Your answer should be no more than 500 words. You should then answer Part 2, using no more than 1000 words. You should write no more than 1500 words in total. Your tutor will give you a grade out of 40 for Part 1 and a grade out of 60 for Part 2. These will be added to produce a grade out of 100 for the assignment as a whole. Please write out the question in full at the head of each answer. However, where a piece of text has been set out for you to comment on, there is no need to reproduce it.

Part 1
Option A
Look closely at Plate 3.2.18 which shows the figure of an Oba with attendants and Portuguese heads. What can this work of art tell us about cross-cultural encounters? In your answer, consider for whom it was made, who viewed it, and what purpose it may have served. (500 words)

Option B
Carefully read the following piece of text. What can it tell us about cross-cultural encounters? (500 words)

On the British loss of antique works of art from Benin


When on the return of the members of the Punitive Expedition it became known that fine specimens of bronze castings and ivory and wood carvings had been found in the old city of Great Benin, Mr. Charles H. Read, the Keeper of Antiquities at the British Museum, with characteristic energy at once endeavoured to secure for the national collection good representative specimens of these bronzes, and he succeeded in gathering together the finest collections of plaques that is to be found in any Museum. But owing to the want of proper pecuniary support, he was not able to obtain possession of any of the more expensive, and in many cases equally interesting, articles. Not only was the national institution thus deprived of its lawful acquisitions, but at the same time another government department sold for a few hundred pounds a large number of castings which had cost thousands to obtain, as well as much blood of our fellow countrymen. Hence it is that so many Bini articles are not represented at all at Bloomsbury. [] From what I can ascertain, the bulk of these bronzes has been secured by the Germans [] For many years the Germans have foreseen that the study of native races and their development, a study known to us under the awkward name of

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Anthropology, is essential to every civilised community which trades with, or is called upon to govern native communities [] Politically, it is of the first importance that our governing officials should have a thorough knowledge of the native races subject to them and this is the knowledge that anthropology can give them for such knowledge can teach what methods of government and what forms of taxation are most suited to the particular tribes, or to the stage of civilization in which we find them. In connection with this, there can be no doubt that with adequate knowledge much spilled bloodshed could have been saved in the past, both on our frontiers and in our colonies.
(From Henry Ling Roth (1972 [1903]) Great Benin: Its Customs, Art and Horrors, Northbrook, IL, Metro Books, pp.xviiixix. Reprinted in Book 3, Chapter 2, Reading 2.3.)

Part 2
Why is the ownership of Benin art so controversial? (1000 words)

Guidance Note
This question is the first that asks you to link two disciplines: History and Art History. Part 1 asks you to demonstrate skills in either visual or textual analysis, while the short essay in Part 2 calls on skills relating to both History and Art History and tests your ability to select appropriate evidence to support your argument.

Part 1
You will note that the phrase cross-cultural encounters occurs in both Option A and Option B. You will need to think about what this term means and explain how you are using it. For Option A you need to look very carefully at the image. Remember that how an image is made in terms of materials and detailing can be revealing as well as what is represented. You should also think about the original site and function of this work of art and the possible reasons for the choice of subject matter for this context. You will find plenty of material to support your answer in the first section of Chapter 1 and in the first two sections of the DVD ROM The Art of Benin. You may also find it useful to read Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 2.2, p. 68. Remember that you are being tested on your skills of visual analysis, so be careful not to use up your word allocation in general background material. If you choose Option B, you will find that Section 1.2 of Chapter 1 provides plenty of guidance on how to analyse a source. The text itself is briefly discussed in Section 2.1 of Chapter 2. You may also find sections of the DVD ROM helpful. Note that the question is asking you to answer a specific question: what can the document tell us about cross-cultural encounters? You might want to consider the way that people and places are presented in the text.

Part 2
You are being asked to explain why the question of ownership of Benin art is so hotly debated; this means defining the issues involved rather than reaching a verdict on that question. The interviews on the DVD ROM will be your main source. You must be careful, however, that you do not simply reiterate the arguments put forward there. Kevin Dalton Joness and Chris Springs arguments are simply two different responses to the common problem of ownership. You need to define and explain this problem. Chapter 1, Section 2 is fundamental for how the circumstances under which the art was acquired relates to the issue of

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ownership. You may find Reading 2.7 and the film of the Quai Branly exhibition on the DVD ROM useful ways to begin to think about the importance of cultural context and public access to the ownership question. Whichever issues you decide to discuss in detail, your response should demonstrate close familiarity with the course material, and not just the application of your own logical reasoning.

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Assignment 06
Cut-off date: 13 August 2010 For this assignment you are asked to write an essay of no more than 1500 words. You should choose to answer either Option 1 or Option 2. You should make it clear which option you have chosen by writing the question in full at the head of your essay.

Option 1 Transmission of Medical Knowledge


In what ways did European practitioners respond to writings on medicine by Islamic authors and why?

Guidance Note
This question tests your understanding of the medical history set out in Chapter 5 of Book 3. More broadly, it gives you an opportunity to develop your skills in constructing a historical argument. This essay asks you to assess how practitioners in Europe reacted to the medical texts from the Islamic world and how that reaction is expressed in the texts written by European practitioners. First, you need to identify the reactions of European practitioners. Did they embrace Islamic ideas? Did they reject them? Did their responses change over time? How did the European context influence their reactions? You should provide evidence for your conclusions through examples of the uses (or not) of particular Islamic texts by European practitioners, and show how European practitioners made use of Islamic ideas in their own writings. Within your answer you should give a brief outline of Islamic medical ideas, but do not spend too much time discussing them. You will find all the material you need for your answer in section 5.3 and the associated resources.

Option 2 Short Stories


Read the following two short stories from the anthology A World of Difference: Ana Menndez, In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd (pp.1936), Roxana Robinson Mr Sumarsono (pp. 7991). Analyse the way that cultural encounters are played out in terms of each storys structure and characterisation.

Guidance Note
As you work on this question you will be developing your critical understanding and appreciation of the short story as a specific literary genre. Close reading will provide the groundwork for your analysis, so you will be building on the approaches to written texts that you have practised in earlier assignments. In working through Book 3, Chapter 4 you will already have read In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd fairly carefully, but re-reading it alongside Mr Sumarsono you should notice new things. Aim to read both stories several times, separately and also consecutively, so that you develop your awareness of the differences between them as well as similarities. The concept of characterisation was discussed in Book 1, Chapter 2; examining the way that Menndez and Robinson create their characters and present them to the reader will help you to foreground the cultural encounters theme in each story. But you will also want to explore the ways in which the stories structures work, and the meanings that thus emerge. Build up your plan for an answer making close reference to both stories for your evidence. Youll find that, where there are contrasts between the two

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stories (for example, in narrative voice), these will provide useful structuring points for your essay. The idea of structure is discussed in some detail in Book 3, Chapter 4 (pp.143 147), and the Preface to the anthology, A World of Difference, pp.xiixiii raises some general points about cultural encounters as the overarching theme of these stories.

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Assignment 07
Cut-off date: 3 September 2010 Please note that your tutor can grant only a limited extension for Assignment 07 and can do so only in exceptional circumstances. If you think that you will be unable to complete Assignment 07 by the cut-off date, you should contact your tutor as soon as possible. If you fail to submit Assignment 07, you cannot pass the course, unless there are special circumstances that prevented you from doing so (see Section 8 of this booklet).

Reflecting on progress
The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to take a step back from your studies and to assess your own progress as a student. It is directly related to the learning outcome that concerns taking responsibility for your own learning while responding reflectively to tutor feedback. As with Assignment 02, this assignment aims to develop your awareness of the way in which you study and write. It aims to help you to think through your work on the course as a whole, at the moment at which you start to think about what to study next. You should begin by looking back over your previous assignments and your tutors comments on these assignments. (If you do not receive Assignment 06 back in time to take account of it in writing this assignment, there is no need to be concerned: just focus on Assignments 01 to 05.) You should then write a critical review of up to 750 words, examining the way in which you study and write your assignments. For example, you might consider how your skills in reading and taking notes or in planning and writing your essays have developed through the course. How you structure your review is up to you, but in the course of it, you should do the following five things:

Identify one or more ways in which you have made progress as a student since starting The Arts Past and Present. (For example, you might describe a skill that you have developed, or a difficulty in studying that you have resolved.) Identify one or more ways in which your approach to study or your study skills could be improved. For at least one of these, identify some different sources of help. Identify one or more strengths that you have as a student. Consider which subject(s) you have most enjoyed studying, and which subject(s) you have got the best marks for. Has the experience of studying the course modified what you thought you would be interested in before you started the course? Do you now have a clearer sense of what youd like to study next?

You should support what you say with specific examples taken from your experiences of working through the course materials and writing assignments. You may wish to refer to one or more of your tutors comments on your assignments.

Further guidance
This section contains some further guidance about completing this assignment, presented in question and answer form. You might also find it helpful to visit the

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Skills for OU Study website (http://www.open.ac.uk/skillsforstudy/) where you can find advice on reflective learning.
Why is it important to review my progress?

The ability to assess your progress is an essential part of becoming an independent learner, aware of your own strengths and weakness and able to take responsibility for your own progress. The willingness and ability to review your own progress is something that you may find essential in other contexts too in your employment, for example. We have timed this assignment towards the end of the course, so that you have plenty of material to review. The assignment is also timed to allow you to complete your review before you start work on your end-of-course assessment. Conducting your review may well help to prepare you to write this final piece of work. Furthermore, it also coincides with the Moving Forwards week, in which you are invited to think about what course you might study next. The point is that reflection on what youve learned and the choice of your next course are closely linked.
What if my tutor disagrees with what I have written?

Although we think that you should take your tutors feedback very seriously, it is hardly to be expected that students will always assess their own progress in exactly the same way as their tutors. In grading this assignment, your tutor is not asked to consider whether he or she agrees with what you have written. Instead, he or she is asked to judge:

the extent to which you have engaged with the task your awareness of the kinds of skills, qualities or habits that make for successful study and writing whether you have written your review clearly and coherently whether you have supported what you say with specific examples, drawn from your own work.

The grading criteria set out in Section 7 of this booklet include some specific references to the two reflective assignments on the course.
How personal should my answer be?

There is one sense in which your answer will certainly be personal: it will be about you, your own approach to study, and your own progress. But there is another sense in which your answer need not be personal at all: if you wish, you can focus entirely on your study habits and skills, such as note-taking or essay writing, without ever mentioning your personal thoughts or feelings about studying. Indeed, most of your review should focus on habits and skills. But in some cases, it will be perfectly appropriate to talk about your feelings about studying for example, if anxiety about deadlines or reading your tutors feedback has been getting in your way. The most important thing is to make specific points and to support them with specific examples, which you will then have available for future reference. Not everyone finds it easy to review their own work, and you may need to approach this assignment in a deliberately clinical spirit. It may help to bear in mind that your tutor is not asked to judge whether he or she agrees with what you have written.

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How far should I rely on my tutors feedback?

You may well wish to make use of, and even quote (with the proper acknowledgement) your tutors comments. But bear in mind that this review is meant to represent your own reflection on your progress, not just your understanding of what your tutor has been telling you. To engage with this assignment you will need to do more than just present a digest of your tutors comments.
Where can I find examples to use?

There are several places where you might look for evidence: you might include brief quotations from your own assignments, from online tutorial activities, from your essay plans or from your notes.
How honest do I have to be?

Tutors are not asked to grade for accuracy, so it would be possible to write a critical review that was partly fictional. (Since you are asked to provide specific examples from your own work, it would be difficult to produce a review that was wholly fictional.) But if you approach the assignment in this way, you will not get much benefit from it. We have set this assignment because we think that reflecting on your progress is important to your development as a student, and you will get the most out of it if you engage with it honestly and seriously.

Preparing for the ECA


Once you have completed Assignment 07, you will be ready to start work on Book 4 and the end-of-course assignment. Before you begin work on Book 4, you should read the advice on How to approach the end-of-course assignment which is on the next page of this booklet. In particular, you should take note of the advice to look at the questions for the end-of-course assessment before you begin work on Book 4.

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End-of-course assessment
Cut-off date: 1 October 2010 Make sure that you know how to submit your end-of-course assessment and that you are aware of the rules concerning late submission. This information can be found in Section 4 of this booklet. For your end-of-course assessment you are asked to write an essay of no more than 2000 words. You should choose to answer one of the three options. You should make it clear which option you have chosen by writing the question in full at the head of your essay.

How to approach the end-of-course assessment


The options set for the end-of-course assessment offer the opportunity to draw together material from different chapters or sections of Book 4, Place and Leisure and related course materials. To complete the assessment you will need to produce an extended piece of writing that shows your ability to analyse texts and/or objects and to construct a well-substantiated and coherent argument. The questions set allow for a great degree of choice in selecting and organising your material. Before planning your essay you should put aside some time to think about the approach you would like to take to the question and the material that you are going to use. It is important to look at the end-of-course assessment questions before you start work on Book 4 and to read them again before you start studying the seaside materials. Once you have read the questions and worked through chapters 1, 2 and 3, you should familiarise yourself with the materials for The Seaside. Begin by skim reading the introductions and the section headings and look through the pictures and other supporting materials to get an idea of the sorts of topics covered. The guidance notes may give further hints about where to find relevant material. Because the work on the seaside is spread over three weeks, you need to take extra care in planning your work. You will find it helpful to draw up a schedule to make sure you dont get behind and leave too much to cover in the last week. Once you have done that, you will be in a position to make a final decision about which question to answer and which materials you would like to use. You should then concentrate your attention on the sections or chapters that you intend to draw on in writing your essay. If you plan to make use of the seaside materials, you should study at least four sections. Otherwise the guidance notes should make it clear which materials you will need to study. At this stage of The Arts Past and Present, you will be familiar with essay writing. This is your longest piece of writing on the course but you need to apply the same disciplines of planning and drafting as you used in your shorter essays. Try to make good use of the feedback that your tutor gave you on your earlier assignments to build on your strengths and to improve your writing skills.

Option 1
There is no such thing as sacred space there are only places to which different people ascribe different values. Discuss with reference to at least two examples drawn from the course materials.

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Guidance Note
This question asks you to consider what you have read, seen and understood about what it is that makes somewhere sacred. In particular, it is asking you to think about the debates and disagreements among scholars that you have read about as to whether spaces and places are inherently sacred, or only become sacred when people designate them as such. It also asks you to consider the ways in which different people might ascribe different values to a place, and what effect this might have in how they relate to that place physically, emotionally and religiously. In order to answer this question, you will have to demonstrate that you have understood the arguments made for and against the proposition that sacred space is inherently sacred, and can demonstrate from the course material the different ways in which people might be said to make places sacred, physically and conceptually. To start thinking about how you might answer this question, you might like to revisit some of the quotations and readings about place in the sacred space chapter, and ideas around making sacred. You may also like to contrast this material with the different spaces of the Roman villa and the seaside. Look again at the DVD Video for sacred space, concentrating in particular on what is being said and thought about natural and man-made features in places that are regarded as sacred by different people.

Option 2
The seaside is a place of escape from the restrictions of everyday life. How far do the depictions of the seaside presented in the course materials reflect this view? Discuss with reference to two or three specific examples, choosing a different genre for each example from: art, music, photography and film.

Guidance Note
This question is designed to test your ability to present a coherent essay, drawing on several sections of the material on The Seaside. To answer this question, you will find all the materials you need in the sections on representations of the seaside in music, painting and film. You can also use material from Dressing for the Beach, especially the accompanying DVD ROM material. You need to present a reasoned case, showing how much these materials provide a picture of the seaside as a place of escape from everyday restrictions. You need to think about how the beach and the sea provided a place to be free. What rules of behaviour were cast off at the seaside? What forms of dress were worn? What other restrictions were relaxed? What activities did people take part in at the beach? To understand how people escaped at the seaside, you will need to think about the restrictions of working life. For example how was time controlled at work and were holidaymakers free to do as they liked, when they liked when at the seaside? Were there rules of appropriate seaside behaviour? You can make a counter argument that the seaside wasnt a place of escape but had its own rules. Whatever argument you choose to make, remember to give examples from the material. Dont be tempted to give a lot of similar cases it is better to discuss a few examples in greater detail.

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Option 3
Would Aristotle have found anything to value in a seaside holiday? Discuss with reference to three or four examples, drawn from both the ancient and modern world, of how people spent their time by the sea.

Guidance Note
This question is designed to test your ability to plan and write a coherent essay, drawing together material from several chapters of Book 4, Place and Leisure. It also allows you to explore the interplay between general principles and particular examples discussed in Book 3, Chapter 3. To answer the question, you will need to draw on the material on Aristotle in Book 4, Chapter 1, Section 1.2. You will also need to draw on other material in Book 4 to find some examples of the way in which people have typically spent their time at the seaside. You should use examples from both the ancient and modern world. In discussing Aristotles views, it is not necessary to set out his arguments in detail: it is enough to consider what his conclusions were. But you should pay careful attention to the complexities of his position. In particular, it is important bear in mind that Aristotle might value an activity either as a means to an end or as worth pursuing for its own sake; and, of course, there might be some activities that he would not have valued at all. The seaside activities you choose to discuss should be ones that enable you explore the complexities of his view. In discussing these examples, you might wish to draw on several different sources of evidence: these might include archaeological remains, photographs, posters, music or newspaper articles. You should use this evidence to identify some different kinds of seaside activity and to consider why people have chosen to pursue activities of these kinds. You should then be able decide whether or not Aristotle might have valued these activities and what reasons he might have given for his views.

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