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English 3564 |
Assignment One
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| Due Dates: | Requirements: |
| Working Draft—February 7, 2003 Final Draft—February 14, 2003 |
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To construct a persuasive argument about the meaning of a brief passage from a selected work of literature or a poem. The argument should be based on a close reading of the text in question.
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It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, (Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 80) |
The Brain—is wider than the Sky— The Brain is deeper than the sea— The Brain is just the weight of God— (Emily Dickinson, "The Brain—is wider than the Sky—," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 189) |
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After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come back and ha'nt us; he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for. (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 251) |
The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why, a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as its day and you're not behind him.
(Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 318) |
Choose one of the above passages.
Take notes including specific details in the passage that explain its meaning and significance. Such details may include context, word choice, comparison/contrast, imagery, punctuation, and anything else the author has used in order to make his or her meaning clear to an audience. Focus on those details that are the most useful in explaining the meaning of the passage.
Formulate a thesis statement about the meaning and importance of the chosen passage. This thesis will undoubtedly change as you write your paper, but at least it will give you a starting point.
Write a draft of your argument about the passage in question. Refer to specific words and phrases in the selected passage in order to support the points in your argument. You may also refer to other quotations in the larger work, as long as you use them to explain the meaning of the passage in question.
Bring a word-processed, correctly formatted draft of this paper to class on February 7, 2003 for peer editing. Include the entire chosen quotation at the top of the first page.
After considering feedback you received from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper. You may also sign up to meet with me to discuss a draft at this point.
Proofread your draft to remove spelling and grammatical errors.
Turn in the completed final draft along with a peer-edited working draft in class on February 14, 2003.
Close reading means paying careful attention to details in a written work. Since you will be looking more closely at this passage than most people who read it, your paper can offer perspectives on its meaning that will interest your audience and challenge their expectations. In analyzing a brief passage, you may ask yourself the following questions:
What, literally, takes place in the passage?
Where in the larger work does the passage occur?
Who speaks in this passage? To whom?
How is this passage different from any other passage in the text?
Does the author use any terms that could be unfamiliar to 21st-century readers? What do these terms mean? How have these terms changed since the author first wrote the passage? Are there any terms that are unfamiliar for other reasons?
Does the author use any imagery in making his or her point? The most common forms of imagery include metaphor, simile, personification and symbol.
Does the author allude to any other works of literature? Common sources of allusions are the Bible, Greek mythology, the works of Shakespeare—any work of literature could be the source of an allusion in a subsequent work of literature, though.
What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of my classmates, my teacher and myself? You will want to tell them something new-that would not otherwise have occurred to them after reading this passage.
I have based the following writing tips on common difficulties that students encounter when writing papers for this class.
Develop an arguable and interesting thesis statement that applies directly to the passage (i. e., that you could not write about any other poem).
Example:
She is not one of us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously. (Kate Chopin, The Awakening.The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C. p. 648)
ARGUABLE THESIS: Adèle Ratignolle's description of Edna Pontellier in the above passage provides us with the main cause of Edna's tragedy, which is that she does not belong to the community that surrounds her.
NOT AN ARGUABLE THESIS: In the above passage, Adèle Ratignolle tells Robert that Edna does not fit into Creole society.
Organize your argument around this thesis statement. Think of between two and four sub-points and structure your argument around them.
Sample Outline (for the above thesis):
MLA format means you should include a list of works cited at the end of your paper, even if it only includes one work. For example:
Some grammatical tips:
Avoid using the passive voice whenever it is possible to do so. When writing in the passive voice, you remove the subject from the sentence or at least de-emphasize it. This makes writing less engaging to most readers.
Example:
Avoid contractions when writing college papers. Replace "they're" with "they are" and replace "don't" with "do not" (these are just a few examples of the numerous possible contractions out there.
Italicization is the best way to signal that you are referring to a word itself and not to the thing that the word represents. Notice how I am using italicization of the terms in the following section "d". You should also italicize titles of books (even in parenthetical references and lists of works cited) and foreign-language words like je ne sais quoi.
The word it's (with an apostrophe) is a contraction of it is. The word its (without an apostrophe) is the possessive of it. Its and whose both deviate from the above rule about possessives.