Essay Assignments
Fall, 2002
(Tentative Schedule)
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Monday, October 14 |
Discuss assignment in class. |
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October 15-27 |
Work on drafting and revising your essay (outside of class). |
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Monday, October 28 |
Turn in Essay #1. |
Procedure
Completing this assignment will ask you to select one of the stories that has been assigned for the first half of the term from the text (The Story and Its Writer), to complete a careful (second) reading of that story, to draw conclusions about your reading and thoughts that will lead you to a thesis statement, and to develop your ideas in support of that thesis statement in a two-page, double-spaced essay. A secondary goal of the paper is to learn to incorporate quotations smoothly into your writing and to cite them accurately following MLA style.
Your thesis for the paper should argue for a certain understanding of the story (its theme) based upon your analysis of that story. You should consider in developing your thesis statement at least one of the elements of fiction outlined in Charters' appendix--plot, character, setting, point of view, style and voice, and symbolism and allegory. You might select only one part of a particular element--such as foreshadowing or dramatic irony as an important part of a particular story's plot.
You will develop your support for your thesis, and
thus your essay, using your own ideas and analysis. This assignment
does not require library research or quoting from outside sources.
You may consider the related readings that are included in our own
text, but these should not be the focus of your analysis or your
essay. As part of your support for your thesis, however, you should
quote from the story itself. Be careful not to over-quote; simply
select material from the story to illustrate your ideas and analysis.
Unless you quote from a source other than our text, a Works Cited
page will not be required for this assignment.
The following are some questions you might use to study and evaluate the story you select.
- Can you pinpoint the parts of the story--exposition, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, and conclusion or denouément?
- What point of view has the author selected?
- Can you determine, using Poe's words, what the "single effect" is that the author might have wanted to achieve?
- Does the author use metaphors, symbolism, or allegory that would affect your understanding of the story?
- Are any parts of the story ambiguous or unclear?
- Does the word selection, use of language, and style in which the story is written affect your reading of it?
- Did the ending of the story surprise you?
- Do you think you know at the end of the story what the author's intention was?
- What , if anything, would you have liked to know to more clearly understand the story?
- Did any parts of the story confuse or trouble you?
- How did you feel about the story in general?
- Do you think you learned something from the story?
- Did any parts of the story seem clearer when you read it for the second time? Can you pinpoint anything you missed when you read it the first time that was important to your ultimate understanding of the story?
See also p. 1698 in the text for a series of questions you might ask to arrive at your thesis.
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Monday, November 4 |
Discuss assignment in class; learn how to find sources; select story that will be the focus of your essay |
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Wednesday, November 6 |
Work on planning your essay and begin locating outside sources (outside of class) |
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Friday, November 8 |
Turn in Thesis Statement , Preliminary (Working) Outline, and bibliography notecards in MLA format for at least three different types of sources you have located to use in writing Essay #2. NOTE: One of these may be from the commentaries in our text. |
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November 9 through November 17 |
Write the first version of your essay (outside of class) |
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Monday, November 18 |
Peer Review Workshop (in-class)--first draft of Essay #2 due. |
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Wednesday, November 20 |
Revision Workshop (in-class)--bring essay #2 to class |
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Friday, November 22 |
Use a folder with pockets so you can turn in the following:
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Procedure
Completing this assignment will ask you to select one of the stories from the text (The Story and Its Writer) that has not been assigned, to read it carefully a number of times, to locate information about the author that will supplement the brief headnotes given in our text, to use library research to learn what some critics have said about the story, to draw conclusions about your reading and thoughts that will lead you to a thesis statement, and to develop your ideas in support of that thesis statement in an essay that is four to six pages long, double-spaced. An additional goal of the paper is to learn to locate secondary sources, to incorporate these smoothly into your essay, to cite them accurately following MLA style, and to prepare a brief Works Cited list. Work on this essay will also involve some focus on the writing procedure: using a working outline, preparing bibliography note cards, taking notes from your sources, using your outline and notes to organize your essay, and polishing your essay through peer review and revision workshops.
Like the first essay, your thesis for this second essay should argue for a certain understanding of the story (its theme--a generalization about the meaing of the story) based upon your analysis of that story. As this essay will be longer than the first one, however, you may consider a variety of factors in developing your thesis statement: one or more of the elements of fiction outlined in Charters' appendix--plot, character, setting, point of view, style and voice, and symbolism and allegory; the background of the author; the time at which the author is writing; any particular school or style of writing that the author represents; and so on.
While you will consult other authors and critics for this essay, you should develop your support for your thesis using your own ideas and analysis. You will use the outside sources as a means of "backing up" your ideas. You should also quote from the story itself to provide evidence to support your viewpoint. As with Essay #1, be careful not to over-quote; simply select material from the story to illustrate your ideas and analysis, and from your outside sources to provide additional "weight" to your own ideas.
Refer to the "Tips" from the assignment for Essay #1 and p. 1698 in the text for a series of questions you can ask as you are studying the story you have selected to help you understand and interpret it. Once you have decided what the story's theme is, you can develop your thesis statement and jot down reasons for your interpretation. These will become the major topic headings in your working outline, which in turn will provide you with a guideline for developing your essay.
You should refresh your memory about how to format your essay, how to incorporate and integrate quotations, how to decide whether a quotation should be "in text" or "block," how to punctuate quotations, how to use MLA parenthetical citations, and how to set up your Works Cited page using information available via the website and in the Gardner supplement. Please note that your parenthetical citations will be a little more complicated for this essay, as you will be using a variety of sources. That means that most of your parenthetical references will probably include both the author's last name and the page number.
You should use at least three different types of sources in preparing your essay; these might be, for example, any three of the following: a book, an article from a printed journal, an article that is reprinted in an electonic data base, an article that has been reprinted in an edited book (such as the commentaries in our text), a website, or a review in a newspaper or magazine.
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Last Updated 05/14/02