The students whose op-ed essays are posted here gave explicit permission for the postings. The guidelines for this end-of-semester assignment are below:
In this University Seminar, we’re looking at how literature—how Les Misérables in particular—relates to our lives today. With this writing assignment, you have a chance to convince a wider audience about why and how Les Misérables might or might not be relevant to them.
Your audience:
You are writing to the many people who look for ideas about how to make the world a better place and/or how to live their best lives. They read books and magazines, they peruse newspapers and online journalism, and they watch movies with an eye to considering how ideas they meet there inform their lives.
The genre: an online essay or op-ed
To reach a broad audience, I invite you to craft an online op-ed. You might already know a site where you would like to post your piece. Still, whether or not your essay appears on the web elsewhere, I would like to share your thoughts on the power of Hugo’s novel by posting your op-ed on my Victor Hugo website.
The op-ed—an opinion piece supported by evidence and logical argumentation and description—is a highly accessible piece of writing, one that literate people will engage with. It’s called “op-ed” because it traditionally appeared opposite the editorial page of the newspaper.
Op-eds typically concern either breaking news or currently ongoing stories (for example, immigration and the status of refugees, or Brexit, or healthcare in the U.S.). But they can also grow out of a personal experience, an anniversary, a contradiction, etc. (see the link on ledes just below). Because of the realities of our semester-long course, you may use as a springboard for your op-ed either current or past news or social concerns: that is, you can write about what you find to be most interesting in Les Misérables without being limited by current events. For some examples, see below.
Whether you write about a current or past event, you’ll need a lede (also called a news hook) which sets the scene and grabs your reader’s attention. Read more about possible ledes and news hooks here: http://www.theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=81.
The writing process and drafts:
To give you the opportunity to write the most compelling essay possible, you will get peer reviews of your best draft—and help two others. In that way, you will see how two classmates understand your ideas, and you will be able to see how others’ ideas come across to you. As peer reviewers, you will be working hard to imagine yourselves as people who may not have read Les Misérables and who have definitely not been privy to our rich conversations.
Stages of the writing process and Deadlines:
- 3/15: brainstorming in class of possible op-ed topics and perspectives
- Over the next two weeks: Refine your op-ed topic and thesis statement
- 3/29: Op-ed topic, lede/hook, and thesis statement due
- 4/5: Topic sentences or a sentence stating the main point of each paragraph of your op-ed due
- 4/12: Final draft of op-ed due; shared with 2 peer editors and MAB
- 4/19: Peer editors’ and MAB’s comments due to the author
- 4/26: Final op-ed due
Your topic and the case you’ll make:
You can choose to write about either the social justice issues or the personal, individual challenges and triumphs that Hugo brings to life in Les Misérables. In either case, you are writing to convince your readers either that the novel has real contemporary relevance or that it is bound by its time and not really relevant to us today. You will also be implicitly writing about whether (and why or why not) literature has power in our lives. To convince your readers, you’ll need to refine a clear argument and support it with evidence and logical reasoning.
How to craft an op-ed, including length:
The structure of an op-ed is similar to that of a traditional academic paper in that you need to make an argument by articulating clearly your point of view and supporting it with evidence. Here’s a traditional op-ed organizational structure: http://www.theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=80.
Tips on writing an op-ed: http://www.theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=79
Again, your op-eds will be different from most in that your “lede” or “news hook”—the news story or event or personal story that prompts the op-ed—does not need to be current.
Today’s op-eds can range in length. Make yours between 600 and 800 words (and include the word count along with your name). If you are intrigued by op-eds and want to know more, see “More Than You Wanted to Know About Op-ed Length,” by Roland King: http://www.phairadvantage.com/2014/09/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-op-ed-length/.
How your Forum posts help you develop this essay:
As we read the novel, you’re invited to write in the Collab Forum about ways in which our world still holds wretched people whose lives are not all that different from Jean Valjean’s, Fantine’s, Gavroche’s, Marius’, and even Inspector Javert’s. Feel free to create your own Forum topic question around a relevant news story and practice writing a brief op-ed. Even when your Forum posts are not written as op-eds, the topics and takes chosen by your colleagues should provide a rich resource for choosing how you would like to focus your op-ed.
Sample relevant news stories:
I, of course, find Les Misérables to be highly relevant to our lives today. News stories that have struck me as connected to Les Misérables include these, for example:
- Convicted murderer Shaka Senghor’s TED talk and community work on “Why your worst deeds don’t define you”: https://www.ted.com/talks/shaka_senghor_why_your_worst_deeds_don_t_define_you?language=en
- “How Starbucks Got Tangled Up in LA’s Homeless Crisis”: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/03/476456674/how-starbucks-got-tangled-up-in-las-homelessness-crisis
- “Obama calls for criminal justice reform at NAACP convention”: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-criminal-justice-reform-naacp-convention
- “3 TVs and No Food: Growing up Poor in America,” by Nicholas Kristof: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/opinion/sunday/3-tvs-and-no-food-growing-up-poor-in-america.html?emc=edit_th_20161030&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=76373914&_r=0
Sample essays and op-eds:
- at The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
- at The HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/search?keywords=op-ed&sortBy=recency&sortOrder=desc
- at The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/?utm_term=.24c6d6b37b32
- at The Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/
Sample op-eds (and essays that have elements of op-eds) about Les Misérables:
- “Beyond the Barricade: An Advent Reflection,” by Abby Deatherage (UVA ’16; USEM student in Fall 2012), an example of the personal essay form of op-ed, posted at The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture: http://www.washingtoninst.org/2980/beyond-the-barricade-an-advent-reflection/
- “Entrepreneurs—What Would Jean Valjean Do?”, by Mimi Robinson (UVa ’18), written as an essay rather than as an op-ed, for a scholarship competition in high school (too long for an op-ed at 1,275 words): https://www.marvabarnett.com/entrepreneurs-what-would-jean-valjean-do/
- “Pope Francis and ‘Les Mis’: Fiction Meets Fact: How our new Pope resembles Victor Hugo’s saintly bishop,” by Edward Mulholland (in The National Catholic Register & much too long at 2,200 words): http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-mulholland/pope-francis-and-les-mis-fiction-meets-fact
Op-eds I have written connected to Les Misérables (all at The HuffPost, comments welcome!):
- “The Unfortunate Timelessness of Inspector Javert”
- “ ‘Deplorables’ Meme Gets It Wrong”
- “How ‘Les Misérables’ Can Help You Vote Your Conscience”