ENGL 2110
Essay 1
Assignment: 100 points possible — Write an essay of 3 to 4 pages, max 5 pages (double-spaced) in response to the short story you have selected.
What You Will Need to Read:
First read the sections on writing about fiction:
• “Writing about Stories” (1279-1288)
• “The Writing Process’ (1233-1257)
• “Writing about Literature” (link on Moodle)
• Choose one of the following stories to read and write about:
o “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison (on Moodle)
o “Jubilee” by Kirstin Valdez Quade
o “A Ride out of Phrao” by Dina Nayeri
o “Are We not Men?” by T. Coraghessan Boyle
o “After the Plague” by T. Coraghessan Boyle

What You Will Write:
• You will write a 3-4 page MLA paper in which you argue a thematic interpretation of your story. The interpretation should be your own and should be arguable based on a close reading of the story. You may rely on what we have learned from reading Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature like a Professor in your analysis. Consider how some of the elements of the story contribute to the message that the author is trying to convey; setting, point-of-view, symbols, characters…etc.
• A separate final page of your paper should be a Works Cited on which you list your research materials and the story, all of which must be cited by author and page number in the paper.

Research Required: You will cite a short story assigned for this class in your essay. Additional research is optional and must be listed on the Works Cited list and cited within your essay.
Works Cited: Use the sample for a “Story, Poem, or Play Reprinted in Anthology or Textbook” on page 1331 of your textbook.
Example:
Jewett, Sarah Orne. “A White Heron.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology 6th ed. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. Boston: Pearson, 2015, pp.38-46.
Format: You will use MLA format for your essay’s layout and documentation, including a header, heading and Works Cited list. Quote directly from the short story in your essay to provide support for your ideas; use quotation marks and provide a page number, “like this” (Cheever 175) when you do so, even for a word or short phrase. If you mention a detail from the story but do not quote directly word-for-word from the story, you should still provide a page number, like this (Cheever 175).
If you add additional research, be sure to cite it properly, as well, using proper MLA format. See the MLA Format document and the handout from OWL at Purdue for additional help with format.
 
Important Notes:

1. Keep your focus in the essay on the text – the story. Be sure to relate all of your ideas back to quoting and analyzing the story itself.
2. This is not a reflection on your experience reading the story or a review of the story– leave that out of it. If you aren’t sure what sort of point to make about what you’ve read, seek help before the due date!
3. You should not summarize the text; instead, have a strong point to make about the choices the author has made and analyze an aspect of the text (take it apart and observe it carefully). You need to show us what you see and where, so we can see it, too.
4. Write about a topic that fits the assignment.
5. Meet the length requirement.
6. Turn your work in on time.
7. Use MLA format.
8. Make your title your own (not the name of the story or the assignment).
9. Begin with an introduction paragraph that sets up your argument by introducing the text, author, and theme you will interpret in your essay.
10. End your introduction paragraph with a clear thesis statement (not a question) that makes a claim about your interpretation of the story.
11. Begin each body paragraph with a clear topic sentence that makes a claim about a particular aspect of the story (character, symbol, setting, event, etc.) that evidences the theme.
12. Use textual support (quotations, paraphrase, and summary) in each body paragraph that is introduced, cited, and discussed to explain both what it means and how it evidences your topic sentence and thesis. When introducing a quote, use a signal phrase.
13. Don’t plagiarize; make sure all outside materials are properly cited, placing borrowed words in quotation marks and citing both borrowed words and borrowed ideas.
14. Proofread your writing carefully. Try reading aloud to catch simple mistakes.
15. Your essay should be formal in tone and diction and should not include slang words or expressions, contractions, profanity, or exclamations.
16. The paper must be typed in 12 point font and double-spaced.
17. The paper must be submitted as a printout in class and digitally on Turnitin.
18. Don’t say “I believe” or “I think” or “in my opinion” in your essay. Readers should be aware that literary analysis deals with forming opinions that are then supported, so it is redundant to say these are your opinions. (Note: This is my preference and not a hard and fast rule, so I will not grade you down if you choose to say “I believe”)
19. The first time you mention it, formally introduce the author’s whole name and the story title. Put quotation marks around titles of short stories, poems and lyrics, such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “I Sell My Dreams” Underline (or italicize) longer works divided into parts or chapters, such as the novella The Metamorphosis. Thereafter, refer to the author by his or her last name. Beginning: In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis… Later: Kafka reveals Gregor’s state of mind by….
20. Use the present tense to describe events in the story unless you must distinguish the past from the present.
21. Revise your writing to take out any wordy sentences and be simple, clear, and direct about your main point and what you are arguing about the story.

If you decide to use secondary sources apart from the short story, please keep in mind in the following:
The best place to find research is through our library.
You may go to the library and do hands-on research through the online card catalogue system LOUIS.
The Library Databases (on the library homepage in the right-side menu, choose “Database Directory” then click on “Literature Databases”) are available on the Internet 24 hours a day. These will be the most useful choices for your project as you search for information about your author and story:
• Literature Resource Center
• Literary Reference Center
• JSTOR
• MLA International bibliography
• Project Muse
You may also use Internet sources from reliable sites (like Google Scholar), like online, peer-reviewed journals. You may NOT use any unreliable sources, which includes the following:
• Reading Notes—Spark Notes, Cliff’s Notes, GoodReads, and the like only point out the obvious and unhelpful.
• Sample Essays—These are sites that sell essays to students who are not as talented as you, and the writing is typically terrible (and may be plagiairized).
• Blogs—Even blogs written by professors are not peer-reviewed and therefore are not scholarly.
• Wikis—Wikipedia may be right most of the time, but it can be wrong. Anyway, college-level work should not cite encyclopedias.