Critical Essay
This page takes on two important questions about the critical essay you will write this semester in this course: what and what for; it also includes an assignment sheet. My goal is to make this page as useful to you as possible, so let me know if it can be improved. If anything is badly worded, unclear, or missing, please contact me with constructive criticisms and suggestions. Ditto for any questions you may have about any of the options listed below. Thanks.
What
Your critical essay is to be thesis-driven, analytical, and persuasive four-to-six-page paper. That is, it should not be simply a personal response to what you have read, or simply a statement of your opinions or assertion of your views, but should instead be organized to convince your readers to accept an argument you have developed in response to a specific question. Your task is to generate an original, creative argument that supports your own perspective on the text or texts you've chosen to write on and is persuasive to your intended audience(s).
Remember that you have the option of either writing an essay for the "Literature of Reconstruction" unit, for the "Literature of Region" unit, or for both (and taking the better grade as your overall grade for that portion of your final grade, along with a bonus to your participation/preparation grade, as well). You need write only one critical essay in this class, but of course I recommend that you do two, not only for the grade or the extra credit but also for the experience and practice.
What For
So far this semester you've already done a good deal of writing--ranging from the informal free writing on specific topics in class to your weekly reading responses. You've gotten good practice at noticing things about literary texts and asking questions of them; we've focused a lot in class on making connections between texts and identifying tensions within and between them, interpreting significant passages and image patterns and relating them to their historical contexts, and considering various answers to questions that you all have posed as well as I. What you haven't had a chance to do yet is develop a sustained argument on a specific topic. The critical essay is your chance to do just that: to focus in on a particular topic or question that most interests you (this involves reviewing your notes and memories of the readings, as well as listserv contributions), to delve more deeply into specific readings (this involves choosing the readings that best allow you to address the topic or question you have chosen and focusing on those parts that seem most relevant to the topic), and to develop and support a sustained argument about the relation between the readings and the topic or question (this involves both critically analyzing the texts you have chosen to focus on and crafting a valid, persuasive argument). Doing these things will not only improve your skills in active, critical reading and analytical, persuasive writing, but it will also prepare you for the final research project.
The other major purpose of the critical essay is for me to indicate clearly what I see as the major questions or issues raised by the first two units in the course. The options for each assignment sheet should provide you with something of a framework for understanding and reviewing each unit as a whole. Hence, it is highly recommended that you consider carefully each of the options given before settling on one on which to focus your critical essay. It's easy to miss the forest for the trees, especially when there were so many different "trees" we were analyzing each day, so seeing the range of questions I think are most important to consider when looking back on the unit can give you a new, better perspective on what we've read, as well as lay out possible directions for the final research project.
Assignment Sheets
As you know, you are required to write one critical essay over the course of the semester, but may choose to do two.
ENGL 334: Realism and Naturalism in American Literature, Fall 2004
Created: 9/20/04 7:00 pm
Last modified: 10/22/04 4:27 pm