The Assignment:
Your task in this essay will require you to pull together many of the skills we have been developing over the past few months. You will develop an essay concerning an author of your choice. This will require that you develop key research questions to guide you during the research process. We will develop strategies to help keep our sources organized. The essay should contain quality research and a logically constructed argument over your chosen author. One possibility is that you formulate an argument about how a chosen author takes up a specific theme through a range of works. Additionally, you can compare and contrast two authors to help support an argument that one author’s use of setting is more powerful than the other’s. We will cover several examples in class in order to guide your prewriting.
We will rely on our Little Brown Handbook, Part 9, to guide us through this project. Additionally, we will continue to cover research practices in depth during our class discussions, and you will have time in class to do your research. We will also develop critical strategies for revision, allowing us to draft and revise in class.
Rubric:
I will grade on the following:
1. Well-developed introduction (30 points)
2. Clearly stated thesis (30 points)
3. Logical and credible support (30 points)
4. Academic paragraphs – clear topic sentences, development, and transitions (30 points)
5. MLA, Grammar and Mechanics (20 points)
6. 1,200 word count (10 points)