Critical Essay #1, Fall 2004

As you know, you are required to write a 4-to-6-page critical essay this semester. This page gives the assignment sheet for the first critical essay; click here for an overview of the critical essay assignment.

Assignment Sheets

Due: Friday, October 8, 2004, at 5 pm

Format: 4-6 pages, double spaced, with reasonable fonts, font sizes, and margins (be warned that barely getting on to the fourth sheet of paper does not a four-page paper make!); title that indicates main argument of paper; heading that includes your name, the course name or number, and the date; bibliography and citations in MLA style (see the links page for explanations of this style of citation); proper quotation format: "..." (12). for quotations within a paragraph; blockquote format for quotations five lines or longer.

Criteria for Evaluation: No matter which topic you invent or option you choose for the response essay, I will be grading your paper in terms of how well you make your case for your argument, how well you base your argument on textual analysis and interpretation, and how well-organized and well-written your paper is. Hence I will be evaluating the coherence, validity, and persuasiveness of your paper's argument, the effectiveness of your paper's structure, and the quality of your paper's prose (grammar, syntax, and punctuation).

Audience: In general, think of your immediate audience as those who have taken and are taking this class; hence, you can assume that your readers have read the texts you're writing on and you don't have to include the kind of background that someone not taking this course would need.

Draft Policy: I'd be happy to read and comment on rough drafts; please give me a draft no later than the beginning of class on W 10/6 if you want comments on it via e-mail.

Rewrite Policy: I will not grade rewrites of this critical essay, although I will give comments on any rewrite(s) you choose to do (which will improve your preparation/participation grade and better prepare you for the final project).

Options: Here are your options for the first critical essay. In each of these options, your job is to come up with an argument that you are trying to support by using textual evidence to persuade your readers of your interpretation's validity.

• Develop your own topic or question (it's a good idea to run these by me well before the paper is due; you must get approval from me in advance if you want to develop your own topic).

• The Problem of American Realism: Consider the range of issues we discussed in relation to the literary movement known as American literary realism--defining and demarcating the movement, considering its relation to other literary movements, analyzing its aesthetic, philosophical, and political presuppositions and consequences, and debating its break from or continuation of literary and other conventions and traditions, among others--and choose either Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition to analyze in light of one of these issues. How can/should we use the novel to help clarify our perspective on the issue you have chosen?

• Remembering the Civil War I: Consider how and to what ends a writer might choose to write about a war that took place decades earlier and that an older generation actually experienced, and then focus your analysis on one or two works that allude to the Civil War from among Ambrose Bierce's "Chickamauga," Stephen Crane's "A Mystery of Heroism," Louisa May Alcott's "My Contraband," Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South, Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Examine what aspects of the war are emphasized and hinted at and consider the author's purposes for referring to the war in that way. Then generate an argument about the intended effects of such a representation of the Civil War, and support it using textual evidence drawn from the work(s) in question. However many works you focus on, your argument should address the stakes and significance of the author's intentions.

  Remembering the Civil War II: Consider how and to what ends a writer might choose to write about the institution of slavery, which was abolished decades earlier and that an older generation actually experienced, and then focus your analysis on one or two works that allude to slavery from among Louisa May Alcott's "My Contraband," Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South, Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, Charles Chesnutt's "Po' Sandy" or "The Goophered Grapevine," and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Examine what aspects of slavery are emphasized and hinted at and consider the author's purposes for referring to slavery in that way. Then generate an argument about the intended effects of such a representation of slavery in the work's own time period, and support it using textual evidence drawn from the work(s) in question. However many works you focus on, your argument should address the stakes and significance of the author's intentions.

• The Racial Politics of Reconstruction: Consider how and to what ends a writer might choose to write about the legacies of Reconstruction, sometimes decades after it ended with the Compromise of 1876, and then focus your analysis on one or two works that allude to this subject from among Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South, Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker" or "We Wear the Mask," Charles Chesnutt's "Po' Sandy" or "The Goophered Grapevine," and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Examine what aspects of Reconstruction are emphasized and hinted at and consider the author's purposes for referring to Reconstruction in that way. Then generate an argument about the intended effects of such a representation of Reconstruction in the work's own time period, and support it using textual evidence drawn from the work(s) in question. However many works you focus on, your argument should address the stakes and significance of the author's intentions.

• Post-Reconstruction Politics: Consider the perspectives on the post-Reconstruction period we have seen in the "Literature of Reconstruction" unit, and then focus your analysis on one or two of the following works that allude to this subject from among Anna Julia Cooper's A Voice from the South, Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office-Seeker" or "We Wear the Mask," Charles Chesnutt's "Po' Sandy" or "The Goophered Grapevine," Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition. Examine what aspects of the post-Reconstruction period are emphasized and hinted at and consider the author's purposes for representing the period in that way. Then generate an argument about the intended effects of such a representation of the post-Reconstruction period, and support it using textual evidence drawn from the work(s) in question. However many works you focus on, your argument should address the stakes and significance of the author's intentions.

ENGL 334: Realism and Naturalism in American Literature, Fall 2004
Created: 9/20/04 7:31 pm
Last modified: 9/20/04 7:31 pm