Assignment:
Write an analytic essay of 500-750 words on an approved topic. Your report will argue an analytic thesis that is, in effect, an answer to your assigned question. Your essay does not need to cite outside critical sources, but if you choose to do so, use MLA documentation style. Your essay should make specific references to the literature you are discussing. Use parenthetical in-text notes to indicate the pages from which quotations have been taken.
Topics.
Review the list of topics to see what is available. Send me an email cbrucker@atu.edu in which you list your top three choices. I am going to let three people write about the same topic. I'll assign you to the highest choice that is still available.
Researching Your Topic.
Once your topic is assigned, reread the relevant literature. Formulate a thesis statement as an answer to the assigned question. You may redirect the topic somewhat to fit what you want to say about the story. The thesis statement, which will appear in your introductory paragraph, should state the idea that unifies your essay. Each of the following body paragraphs should begin with a topic sentence that supports your thesis. Your concluding paragraph should provide a sense of closure and may be used to briefly summarize the central point of your essay.
Writing the Essay
Your essay should be double-spaced. Unless you note otherwise, I will assume that in-text citations that follow quotations from the work you are discussing refer to the text we are using in this course.
Be careful to proofread your report thoroughly. Grammatical and mechanical errors should be avoided. If you need some help, contact me or stop by the Writing Center in WPN 365 during its hours of operation (Monday-Friday 2:15 p.m.-6:00 p.m.)
Samples
Click the following links to read sample papers that were written last semester.
|
|
|
|
|
|
What does T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" say about the difficulty of human communication (1917)? |
Addison Whitsell |
|
|
How does the situation of the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" reflect contemporary concerns of women? (1892) |
Jenna Evans |
|
|
How is marriage portrayed in Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"? (1819) |
Sam Baker |
|
|
Why is the scene in which Sylvia climbs a tree important in Sarah Orne Jewett's story "A White Heron" (1886)? |
Barbara Falsca |
|
|
What is the contrast between youthful and mature love in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" (1835)? |
Stepahnie Corbin |
|
|
How does the protagonist of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) use her sexuality to preserve some sense of independence? |
Tarren Roberts |
| no |
What causes the mental breakdown of the narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892)? |
Keena Shields |
| no |
Why are Joe and Missy May able to preserve their marriage in Zora Neale Hurston's story "Gilded Six-Bits" (1933)? |
Barbi Brown |
|
|
At the end of Mary Freeman's story "A New England Nun" (1891), why does Louisa feel like a "queen" (p. 1628)? |
Adrianne Hoyt |
|
|
How does Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" (1931) portray the difficulty of escaping one's own personal history? |
Sierra Garcia |
|
|
What about Dave Saunders' situation and feelings as portrayed in Richard Wright's story "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" (1939) transcends the specifics of time and place? |
Tabatha Carey |
|
|
How are men characterized by the women in Eudora Welty's story "Petrified Man" (1941)? |
|
|
|
Why does Joy Hopewell want to seduce manly Pointer in Flannery O'Connor's story "Good Country People" (1955) and what does she discover about herself when she tries? |
Kyle Duvall |
|
|
What is gradually revealed about the character Neddy Merrell in John Cheever's story "The Swimmer" (1964). |
|
|
|
How does James Baldwin's decision to tell "Going to Meet the Man" from the point of view of the white sheriff affect the story (1965)? |
Stuart Scott |
|
|
What does Alice Walker's story "Everyday Use" (1973) suggest about how we should relate to our parents and our family heritage? |
Linda Spencer |
|
|
What does the statue that Hugh Wolfe carves in Rebecca Davis's "Life in the Iron Mills" (1861) represent? |
Nicholas Samac |
|
|
How does the murder of her aunt many years previously in China relate to the Chinese-American woman who narrates Maxine Kingston's story "No Name Woman" (1976). |
|
|
|
What does Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" (1956) criticize about American society in the 1950s? |
Joy-Anna Wohlgemuth |
|
|
How does Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy" use hyperbolic imagery? |
|
no |
How does Kate Chopin's "At the Cadian Ball" affect your understanding of her story "the Storm"? | Linda Certuche Stephanie Stacy Brittany White |
yes |
In what ways does Poe's "Annabel Lee" argue that love has transcendant power? | Christine Dale Jessica Lipe |
no |
How are characters' names used ironically in Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People" (1955)? | Matthew Goodson Bethany Gunderman Emily Stobaugh |
The following information is taken from Lynn Troyka's Simon and Schuster Handbook for Writers, Sixth Edition, 2002:...
A thesis statement is the central message of an essay. It's the essay's main idea. As a writer, you want to write a thesis statement with great care so that it prepares your readers for what follows in the essay. This means your thesis statement has to reflect with some accuracy the content of your essay.
A topic sentence contains the main idea of a paragraph. the topic sentence controls the content of the rest of the paragraph. . . . In academic writing, most paragraphs begin with a topic sentence (shown here in italics) so that readers know immediately what to expect.
To travel the streets of Los Angeles is to glimpse America's ethnic future. At the bustling playground at McDonald's in Koreatown, a dozen shades of kids squirt down the slides and burrow through tunnels and race down the catwalks, not much minding that no two of them speak the same language. Parents of grade-school children say they rarely know the color of the youngster's best friends until they meet them; it never seems to occur to the children to say, since they have not yet been taught to care.
--Nancy Gibbs, "Shades of Difference"
updated November 18, 2009