Paper 1 Assignment Page
Paper Length: 4-5 typed, double-spaced pages.
Assignment Timetable
6/3 Final draft due
by 4 p. m. (9 p.m. pm 6/3 for English 102V students) You will need
to send your paper to me in one of these ways:
All drafts must be typed.
Your first paper assignment for English 102
will be a 4-5 page critical essay on short stories. This essay is not a
research paper. Rather, its purpose is to demonstrate your ability to
investigate
and support a thesis of your own devising; to analyze with skill
and insight the evidence from specific literary works; and to
present
the whole in a clearly organized, well-written fashion.
Format: Your
paper should be typed and double-spaced with 1" margins on each side. Citations
and bibliography should follow the MLA
style of citing the author and page number for the works cited. Your heading
should appear in the upper left-hand corner of the paper as follows:
See this
link for more information on formatting.
Writing Topic: Write an essay in which
you compare two stories from our book. One of the stories must have
been read in class. You may, if you wish, choose to focus upon one particular
element, such as comparing characters, themes, imagery, symbolism, and
so forth.
Some possible subjects for these papers include
the following (choose any two from the stories in parentheses; you may
also choose your own stories):
1. The Journey as a Symbol ("Young Goodman Brown," "Araby," "A Worn
Path")
2. Natural and Supernatural ("Young Goodman Brown," "The
Lottery," "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Pomegranate
Seed," "The Masque of the Red Death")
3. Man, Nature, and Conflict ("The Blue Hotel," "The Portable Phonograph,"
"The Things They Carried")
4. Responses to War in ("Soldier's Home," "The Things They Carried,"
"The Shawl," "Snow")
5. Cultural Understanding ("Snow," "Two Kinds," "Everyday Use," "First
Confession," "And Sarah Laughed," "The House on Mango Street,"
"The Lesson")
6. Initiation into Reality ("Araby," "Barn Burning," "A &
P," "The Loons," "Young Goodman Brown")
7. Family Relationships ("Two Kinds," "Soldier's Home,"
"Everyday Use," "First Confession," "Roman Fever,"
"Shopping")
8. Women's Social Roles: Confinement, Liberation, or Both? ("The
Muse's Tragedy," "The Yellow Wallpaper," "The
Story of an Hour," "Roman Fever," "The Other Two,"
"How to Become a Writer," "The Horse Dealer's Daughter,"
"The Chrysanthemums")
Some questions to think about when preparing to write your paper:
1. Subject. What theme or subject will
your paper address? What works will you compare?
-
What limits will you place upon the subject?
In other words, if you're writing about initiation, how did you decide
which two stories to compare? Will you compare characters? plots? themes?
settings?
-
Do the stories you've chosen have significant
similarities and differences?
2. Approach to the topic. Will you
be writing a subject-by-subject comparison? A point-by-point comparison?
What will your organizational plan be? Are you looking at the subject from
a particular critical perspective? What will be new or unique about your
approach? What do you want to tell the reader that probably isn't
already known?
3. Thesis. What argument are you making in this paper? Remember,
a thesis must be 1) limited to a single subject (but not too limited);
2) arguable; and 3) able to be developed in the amount of space you
have available. What topics will you cover in the paper? If you know
your thesis statement, include it here.
Send an e-mail message to Dr.
Campbell.
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