Assessment One: Bibliographic Exercise
Word count: 500 words Due: 4pm, Friday August 28 Percentage: 15%. This first piece of
assessment is designed to familiarise you with some of the basic requirements in
producing written work in Arts subjects.
The task
Select ONE of the essay topics from assessment 2 that interests you and produce an
annotated bibliography of four sources for this topic. (NB: You might like to use this
task as research toward your essay for Assessment 2; although you may write on a
different identity category for the essay if you so wish.)
The annotated bibliography should use MLA style and be broken up into two sections:
1. A title and brief description of the case/object of study you have selected
(approximately 100 words)
2. Bibliographical details (i.e. author, title and publication details) and descriptions
(i.e. annotations) of 4 items (approximately 400 words in total). The items selected
must include at least one of each of the following:
a. A peer-reviewed academic article (what is this? More information here:


)

b. A book or book-chapter.

Note; it is ok to utilise one reading from the subject reader. It’s not recommended to

use more than one. See grading criterion i) below.

Learning Outcomes and Grading Criteria

Your annotated Bibliography will be assessed on the basis of how well it demonstrates

your achievement of the following learning outcomes:

i) identifying, sourcing (through the library and relevant databases) and using

academically valid and reliable sources;

ii) identifying and summarising a writer’s key arguments;

iii) and acknowledging or citing these sources correctly.

These are useful skills which are essential when conducting research and engaging in

academic writing.

Useful information for Assessment 1

A bibliography is an alphabetical list of resources (usually found at the end of a

published piece of academic work). Each entry includes information on the author,

title, publisher, year and place of publication, and relevant pages.

An annotated bibliography also contains concise descriptions of each resource,

usually of about 100 words. Your description should focus on the following aspects of

your chosen resource (text):

• content, aims and core argument

• special features: e.g. scope, perspective

• usefulness for your purposes

• reliability and limitations

Refer to General MLA style notes on the library website:

http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/recite/citations/MLA/generalNotes.html

Note: if you are unable to find how to cite something on the library website, try OWL

at Purdue next: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Further information and suggestions

Do not select the first few articles that a preliminary search throws up. Begin with a

broader search and then focus it down to the articles you think most important.

Whether your evaluation of the writing is positive, negative or neutral, remember to

support your claims with examples, however brief.

It is important that your annotations are given in your own words. Plagiarism is an

extremely serious offence at the University of Melbourne, and the penalties are

severe. If you have not already done so, it is strongly recommended that you

familiarise yourself with the material to be found at this link –

https://academichonesty.unimelb.edu.au/ – before proceeding with this assignment.

Submission Details

Assignment submission is done electronically by uploading your finished work to

“Assessment Submission (Turnitin)” via your LMS. No hard copy is required. For further

instructions see the Turnitin tab on the LMS.

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Below is an example of an annotated bibliography. This is the kind of annotated

bibliography one might produce for an essay on the proposed essay questions –

assessment 2. It’s up to you: it would be possible to build a bibliography in relation to

realism, modernism or postmodernism; gender, race or ideology; or how they

intersect in another representational context (such as a specific event or newsworthy

debate, for example) in respect to one of the essay tasks. Indeed, you might find it

more enjoyable to research something that interests you in this way.

Bottom line: You should focus on finding useful resources in respect to the essay

question you have chosen in relation to Assessment task 1.

Assessment 1

Name:

Tutor and tutorial time:

The social construction of race in Clint

Eastwood’s Gran Torino

Eastwood’s film, Gran Torino (2008), has him in the lead role as Walt

Kowalski—a racist old man whose neighbourhood demographic is lately

Asian, African and Hispanic Americans. As a cultural product, Gran Torino

offers scope for a study of the social construction of race. Race is a category

with a long history. Thus individuals have access to heavily reinforced

attitudes and beliefs about race. However, an analysis of how race is

represented in this film will show that race is largely the product of a range of

attitudes reactively formed in response to circumstances and events rather

than specific attributes of the racialised group or person. [107 words]

Barrera, Ashley M. “Movie Reviews.” Journal of Feminist Family

Therapy 23.2 (2011): 146-60. Print.

The rhetoric of this film “courageously” tackling its subject matter indicates the

reviewer’s favourable response to Gran Torino from the outset (146). The

journal is rather specialised and it becomes clear that Barerra’s perspective is

limited in this respect. Barrera makes frequent unsupported statements about

social issues (particularly relating to race and ethnic communities) as well as

errors in recounting the film’s storyline, indicating that this reviewer is not

expert in scholarly writing and critical thinking. Conclusion: potentially useful in

highlighting how assumptions about race proliferate unsupported and in

response to works like Gran Torino, thus sustaining and reinforcing

representations of race like those given in this film. [108 words (not

including citation)]

Bond, Cynthia. “Laws of Race/Laws of Representation: The

Construction of Race and Law in Contemporary American Film.” Texas

Review of Entertainment & Sports Law 11.2 (2010): 219-66. Print.

Bond argues that race is a social construction and that visual media like film

participate in the construction of racial categories. Film, for example,

naturalises these categories and often reinforces normative constructions of

race whilst at the same time contributing to the social construction of the

categories it deploys. Bond points out that implicated in every film is the

constructed identity of its audience–usually ‘white’–and that the recognised

values of this audience ultimately determine how its racial categories are

depicted. Although this article does not address the film Gran Torino

specifically, it would support a critique of this film’s representations of race

and its target audience. [108 words (not including citation)]

Denzin, Norman K. Reading Race: Hollywood and the Cinema of Racial

Violence. London; Thousand Oaks; New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002.

Print.

Denzin’s book explores the construction of racial violence in Hollywood films.

Minority groups are depicted in violent contexts, framing them as a menacing

epidemic—one that threatens the stability of (‘white’) society. Denzin argues

that a “politics of cultural difference” has (paradoxically) enabled the

manipulation of racial and cultural categories in ways that blur the differences

between these groups and more readily positions them collectively as the

“dark-skinned other” (5). The paradox is that, while seemingly constructing a

homogenous other, films such as Gran Torino problematically represent

gradations of racialised catagories of class that in turn reifies racist ideologies

in the pitting of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ dark-skinned others against one another.

This, plus the gendering of group violence, essentialises racial and gender

differences within an assimilationist discourse. [117 words (not including

citation]

Roberts, Rex. “Gran Torino.” Film Journal International 112.1 (2009): 38-

39. Print.

Roberts asks, “are you racist if you offend with equal opportunity?” (39). He

emphasises the goodness of Gran Torino’s main character, the “unapologetic

bigot, Walt” (39). Walt’s racism is thus downplayed on the basis that he is just

as nasty to his own children and grandchildren as he is to the racialised

others “who pollute his block” (39). By framing the possibility that misanthropy

dilutes racism, Roberts demonstrates faulty reasoning. Eastwood’s reputation

is clearly an important factor in Roberts’ response to this film, indicating how

racial categories are sometimes supported by emotional reactions to the

ideological implications of neo-liberalism like an actor’s status. [106 words

(not including citation)]

Total word count: 546 (not including citations)

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