HUM 223: Writing assignment for next week

Write a 2- to 4-page reaction paper on the performance of "When the Saints Go Marching In" we watched in class Thursday. Double-space in a standard typeface, 12pt Times New Roman or 10-point Verdana preferred. Due either Tuesday or Thursday (I like to have my assignments fall due anytime during the week so you can plan ahead better).


In 2006 Bruce Springsteen toured the U.S. and Europe, performing American roots standards with a group he called the Sessions Band. In this version of the old jazz standard "When the Saints Go Marching In," he switched off the vocal lead with Patti Scialfa and Marc Thompson. "The Saints" has a beloved place in American popular culture as a rowdy, up-tempo Dixieland jazz song, but its roots are in gospel music and its words are from the Bible. Do Springsteen and the Sessions Band succeed in going back to those roots? Does it work for you? Why? Or, why not?

xxx Copeland xxx

Here is a link to the lyrics on a Lebanese fansite. Here's the video:



Write a two- to four-page reaction paper on Springsteen's performance with the Sessions Band of "The Saints." Here are those three questions again. (They never go away!)

1. What about this piece of music and/or performance stands out in my mind?
2. What in my background, values, taste and interests makes me react that way?
3. What specific things about the performance trigger that reaction? [These will be the things Copeland mentions in Seiler's tip sheet.]

The questions are adapted from a kind of assignment you may have written in English or language arts classes, but they're the best way I know of staying on track when you write a response paper to music, too, or any other work of art.

This paper is a journal -- i.e. it's not a formal English-class type paper -- and I consider it part of your class participation grade rather than a formal writing assignment. That means I'm more interested in what you say, in other words the content, than I am in how you say it, i.e. the grammar and punctuation. Write as well as you can, but don't freeze up over grammar.