Humanities deliverable: five critiques planning guide
Five short critiques across five disciplines, each needing subject-specific terminology and an argument for why the work has lasted — with a mistranslation waiting in the final prompt that most answers walk straight into.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 8, 2026
What does each of the five critiques have to contain?
Two requirements attach to **every one** of the five responses, and they are stated in a single sentence that is easy to read past: each should include *an analysis of the topics using terminology unique to that subject area* and *an evaluation as to why the topic stands the test of time*. So each answer has two jobs, not one. The terminology requirement is what makes this a critic's exercise rather than an appreciation — the brief's own framing notes that film uses one vocabulary for aesthetics and architecture another. The durability requirement is the evaluative half, and it is the one most often dropped: saying a work is great is not the same as arguing why it has lasted. Budget both into every response and the deliverable largely writes itself. Treat the durability sentence as a separate closing move in each response and it stops going missing.
The first prompt pre-empts its own commonest failure — *your response should be more than a summary of the film* — and the phrase *film as art* tells you which vocabulary to reach for. Mise-en-scène, cinematography, montage and editing rhythm, sound design, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, and the auteur question all count as terminology unique to the subject; plot recap does not. Pick a film you can discuss formally rather than one you merely admire, because the analysis has to be about how it is made. It also helps to know that film's status as art was seriously contested and only became a major area of aesthetics relatively recently, which gives the *stands the test of time* half something to argue rather than assert. Choosing a formally interesting film matters more here than choosing an important one.
The Plato and Aristotle prompt is a role-play with a real accuracy requirement, and the trap is making them agree. Plato's account in the *Symposium* runs upward: sexual desire is a deficient response to physical beauty that should be developed into a response to beauty of soul and finally to the Form of Beauty itself — so love ascends away from the particular person. Aristotle's *philia* stays with the particular person, and he distinguishes friendships grounded in virtue, in utility and in pleasure, with the virtue-based kind highest because each wishes the other well for the other's own sake. Both do explain love through excellence, which is precisely Vlastos's objection to the pair of them: they describe appreciation of admirable qualities rather than devotion to an individual. State the difference explicitly in a sentence rather than leaving the reader to infer it from two summaries.
The two poems reward technical vocabulary because they are technically opposite. Petrarch's sonnet is built on sustained antithesis and oxymoron — *I fear and hope, I burn and freeze likewise*, *without eyes I see* — the Petrarchan convention of the lover as a bundle of warring contradictions, kept in regular metre and rhyme so the form contains the turbulence. Dickinson does the reverse: after the pain comes *a formal feeling*, nerves sitting *ceremonious like tombs*, feet moving *mechanical*, ending in *first chill, then stupor, then the letting go*. Her dashes, slant rhyme and broken line lengths enact numbness rather than describing it. One poem dramatises emotional turbulence; the other dramatises emotional shutdown. That contrast is the essay. Quote a phrase from each poem when you name a technique, since both texts are supplied in full.
The music and myth prompts each have a specific technical centre. Beethoven's Violin Romance No. 2 and Joplin's *Maple Leaf Rag* differ most usefully in rhythm and form — sustained lyrical legato line and orchestral accompaniment against ragtime's syncopation over a steady march bass, and a through-composed romance against strain form built from repeated sixteen-bar sections. For the hero prompt, note that *classical terms* means the Greek critical vocabulary, and there is a trap in it: *hamartia* is not a 'fatal flaw'. That reading is a mistranslation, and tragedy turns on error and on central human attributes rather than on a character defect. Use hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis and catharsis accurately, and the answer immediately outranks the monomyth summary it would otherwise have been. Naming the reversal and the recognition in your chosen character's story is worth more than tracing every stage of a journey.
Prompt | Terminology to use | The response that fails |
|---|---|---|
1. A film, as art | Mise-en-scène, montage, cinematography, diegetic sound, auteur | A plot summary with praise attached |
2. Plato and Aristotle on love | Eros, the Form of Beauty, philia, virtue/utility/pleasure | Making both philosophers say the same thing |
3. Petrarch vs Dickinson | Sonnet, volta, oxymoron, antithesis; slant rhyme, dash, metre | Paraphrasing both poems' feelings |
4. Beethoven vs Joplin | Syncopation, legato, strain form, metre, texture | Describing which one you prefer |
5. A modern hero, classically | Hamartia, peripeteia, anagnorisis, catharsis | Calling hamartia a 'fatal flaw' |
All five | — | Omitting why the work has lasted |
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Apply discipline-specific critical vocabulary rather than general evaluative language.
- 02Argue for a work's durability instead of asserting its greatness.
- 03Represent two philosophical positions accurately enough that their difference survives.
- 04Use classical dramatic terminology precisely, including where common usage has corrupted it.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation Hi Class, Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts. Contact me if you have any questions. Important information on Writing a Discussion Question Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references) There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article. Include in-text citations in your response Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information Follow APA-7th edition Points will be deducted if the above is not followed Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week. 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The five prompts and their requirements
- 01Five separate responses, one per prompt.
- 02Subject-specific terminology in each response.
- 03An evaluation of why each work or topic stands the test of time.
- 04A film analysis that goes beyond summary and treats film as art.
- 05Distinct overviews of Plato's and Aristotle's accounts of love.
- 06A comparison of the two supplied poems and of the two named musical works.
- 07A classical account of one named modern character as a hero.
Working through film, philosophy, poetry, music and myth
Film as art
Analyse a chosen film's construction and argue for its lasting importance.
Plato and Aristotle on falling in love
Give two distinct accounts and let the difference between them be visible.
Petrarch and Dickinson compared
Contrast how each poem's form enacts its emotional content.
Beethoven and Joplin compared
Contrast the two works by rhythm, structure and texture.
A modern hero in classical terms
Apply Greek critical vocabulary to one named character.
Getting the terminology right before you write
Recommended databases
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The assigned Kanopy video and course materials
- Poetry Foundation and Library of Congress collections
Search sequence
- 1.Read a reference account of Plato's Symposium and Aristotle's account of philia before drafting prompt two, because the difference between them is the whole answer and paraphrase from memory tends to erase it.
- 2.Look up the technical vocabulary of each discipline in turn and choose two or three terms per response you can use accurately, rather than reaching for whatever comes to mind while writing.
- 3.Listen to both musical works with the score structure in mind, so the comparison rests on syncopation and strain form rather than on general impressions of mood.
- 4.Check the meaning of the classical terms before using them. Hamartia in particular is routinely mistranslated, and using it correctly is the single cheapest way to distinguish this response.
Philosophy and aesthetics sources for the five prompts
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Love (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2021
The source for prompt two's Platonic half: eros as a deficient response to physical beauty that should develop toward beauty of soul and finally the Form of Beauty. It also supplies the advanced move — Vlastos's objection that Plato and Aristotle alike describe appreciation of admirable properties rather than devotion to a particular person, which is a genuine criticism you can raise once both accounts are on the table.
- 02
Aristotle's Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2022
Aristotle's philia across Books VIII and IX, with the three bases of friendship — virtue, utility and pleasure — and the point that the highest kind involves wishing good things to the other for the other's own sake. This is what keeps Aristotle's account attached to a particular person, which is precisely where it parts from Plato's ascent.
- 03
Philosophy of Film
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2015
Establishes the terms of the 'film as art' framing the first prompt requires — film's contested artistic status, medium and ontology, the auteur debate, and how audiences engage with fictional characters. Useful for the durability half too, since film's acceptance as a serious subject of aesthetics is itself recent and arguable.
- 04
Aristotle: Poetics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · 2024
The source that saves the fifth prompt. It states directly that tragedy is never about flaws and that the 'fatal flaw' rendering of hamartia is a mistranslation, and it sets out plot, catharsis and the role of reversal. Reading it before writing turns a monomyth summary into a genuinely classical account of your chosen character.
Before the humanities deliverable is submitted
Common mistakes
- Summarising the film rather than analysing it, which the brief explicitly rules out.
- Writing all five responses in general evaluative language with no subject terminology.
- Omitting the 'stands the test of time' evaluation, which is required in every response.
- Collapsing Plato and Aristotle into a single account of love through virtue.
- Paraphrasing the two poems' emotional content instead of analysing form and technique.
- Comparing the two musical works by personal preference rather than by rhythm, form and texture.
- Describing hamartia as a 'fatal flaw', which is a mistranslation.
- Substituting the hero's journey monomyth for the classical vocabulary the prompt requires.
Submission checklist
- All five prompts have their own response.
- Each response uses at least two terms specific to its discipline.
- Each response argues why the work has lasted.
- The film response analyses form, not plot.
- Plato's ascent toward the Form of Beauty and Aristotle's philia are clearly distinguished.
- The poetry comparison names formal features in both poems.
- The music comparison addresses rhythm and structure, not preference.
- Classical terms in the hero response are used with their actual meanings.
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Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
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Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.