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English 3564 |
Assignment One
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| Due Dates: | Requirements: |
| Working Draft—January 31, 2006 Final Draft—February 7, 2006 |
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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.
| Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations than you might suppose. (Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 79) |
I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hairball would take it, because maybe it would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hairball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that, before, but I had forgot it. (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 230) |
| I taste a liquor never brewed— From Tankards scooped in Pearl— Not all the Vats upon the Rhine Yield such an Alcohol! Inebriate of Air—am I— And Debauchee of Dew— Reeling—thro endless summer days— From inns of Molten Blue— When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee Out of the Foxglove's door— When Butterflies—renounce their "drams"— I shall but drink the more! Till Seraphs1 swing their snowy Hats— And Saints—to windows run— To see the little Tippler Leaning against the—Sun— (Emily Dickinson, "I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed—," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 173) |
They made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a seen that the old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by-and-by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. (Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume C, p. 350) |
Choose one of the above passages.
Take notes including specific details in the passage that explain its meaning and significance. Such details may include its context in a larger work or collection of works, 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 it will give you a useful 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 January 31, 2006, for peer editing. Rewrite the entire chosen quotation at the top of the first page of your paper.
After considering feedback you receive from peer editors and reconsidering your own argument, revise your paper. Revision means adding or cutting paragraphs and rearranging them to make the structure of your argument more consistent and clearer.
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 7, 2006.
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 terms that are peculiar or have double meanings? Looking such terms up in the dictionary is a good way to explore this question further.
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. These are the most common, but any work of literature could be the source of an allusion in a subsequent work of literature.
What will make this paper interesting to an audience consisting of your classmates, your teacher and yourself? You will want to tell them something new—something 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):
Adèle's description of Edna is accurate. She is not "one of us".
Adèle's description of Edna's potential blunder subtly indicates Robert's low status within Creole society.
Adèle's prediction accurately foreshadows the outcome of the novel.
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:
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Volume C. Sixth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. pp. 633-723.
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:
ACTIVE VOICE: Huck loves Emmeline.
(Note structure: subject/verb/object)
PASSIVE VOICE: Emmeline is loved.
(Structure: object/"to be" verb/past participle)
ACTIVE VOICE: Huck loved Emmeline.
PASSIVE VOICE: Emmeline was loved.
(Passive voice can exist in any verb tense.)
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 "e". 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 or hoi polloi or Bildungsroman.
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 standard rule for possessives.
Refer to events that take place in your chosen work in the present tense. It may sound strange at first, but it is the standard convention for writing about literature.