Integrative Essays provide an opportunity for you to demonstrate your intuitive, analytical, and empathetic understanding of the program themes and materials.

For this assignment you will need to draw from each of the following types of presentation used in the current period of study:

• Films
• Lectures
• Seminar notes
• Songs
• Irish language
• Drama
• Poetry
• Texts

Understandably, however, it would be impossible to cover everything (i.e., every film, each lecture) presented during the period. Your instructor considers all mediums to be equally important, and she or he will be looking for examples drawn from each one. You are also encouraged to draw on outside information such as research or your own personal passions if you choose, but you must focus mostly on program materials.

Your paper must be at least five pages in length for the two Fall Quarter papers. These essays must be typed, double spaced, stapled, with 1″ margins, and in a reasonable font (Times New Roman 12). Each assignment includes an Integrative Essay Checklist to which you should refer.

To start with, making sure to cover each medium of study as mentioned above, go through your portfolio and jot down any lecture, seminar, language, and film notes, important quotations (“and we asked ourselves, what has she to lose?” from Molly Sweeney) literary passages, song lyrics, personal thoughts, comments from seminar, or other elements that seem important to you.

Think of the items on this list as “dots.” Using your list of dots, work on developing a theme — a kind of golden thread — that matters to you. Your job will then be to connect the dots in some coherent order. You may wish to prove something, or argue a position, or you may prefer to show how a particular image or idea plays out in the materials presented in this particular period. In the conclusion of your paper, you should show why the theme you chose matters to you. Ask yourself, “How can the reader know it was I who wrote this paper?” It is important to reflect on how you, at this point in the program, are processing into your life and worldview what you are encountering in this section. Every major point needs an example and must have a specific reference drawn from program materials only.

Only you can write these integrative essays; they should reflect exactly the themes that excite you. Because they reflect your interests, locate the program materials that speak most directly and effectively to the theme of your choice. Use those materials! These essays provide the opportunity for you to develop and showcase your best creative and academic writing skills, so plan ahead so that you can revise as many times as you need.

Here are some thematic possibilities for the first (five-page) integrative essay; you are not, however, limited to them:

– Pick a theme, like blood, or water, or the land, or being a warrior, or geasa, or gaisce, or sexuality, or relationships between humans and gods.
– Explore how masculine and/or feminine issues are played out in ancient or early Christian Ireland.
– Explore the shift from pre-Christian to early Christian spirituality in Ireland as revealed through the program resources.
– Argue which conditions in ancient and early Christian Ireland made the people susceptible to waves of invasion (through the 12th Century). Choose a lens (legal, economic, spiritual or linguistic). Feel free to bring in conditions outside of Ireland to support your argument.
– Discuss the theme of ownership — single and communal — in ancient Irish life, and what language has to do with it.
– Explore the importance of cyclic thought in ancient and early Christian Irish artifact, sung poetry, literature, code of law, etc.