Critical Essay #2, 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: Monday, November 1, 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 10/27 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).

Extra-Credit Policy: Since you are required to write only one critical essay this semester, if you do choose to do both, I'll count the better of the two grades and give you extra credit for your participation/preparation grade, as well.

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).

• Dialect: Consider the use and avoidance of dialect in the works that we have read in this unit, and choose two to compare and contrast on one of the following grounds: a) choose a work that embraces dialect and one that avoids it and make an argument about why this choice may have been made and what is at stake in it; b) choose works that focus on the dialects of different regions and consider how and to what ends the writers represented the dialect of each region; c) choose works that focus on the dialects of different ethnic groups and consider how and to what ends the writers represented the dialect of each group. Feel free to use any relevant works from the course to date, so long as at least one of them is from the "Literature of Region" unit and neither are works you wrote about in the first critical essay.

• Gender: Consider the ways in which works such as George Washington Cable's "'Tite Poulette," Kate Chopin's "Désirée's Baby" and The Awakening, Stephen Crane's "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," John Milton Oskison's "The Problem of Old Harjo," Susan Glaspell's Trifles, Sherwood Anderson's "Hands," Marietta Holley's Samantha Among the Brethren, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "The Revolt of 'Mother'" broach issues of gender roles and expectations (for both men and women). Then choose one or two to use to address the significance of patterns in the representation of gender and gender issues. How are gender issues used as a code for addressing broader changes in U.S. society?

• Sexuality: Consider the ways in which works such as George Washington Cable's "'Tite Poulette," Kate Chopin's "Désirée's Baby" and The Awakening, John Milton Oskison's "The Problem of Old Harjo," and Sherwood Anderson's "Hands" broach issues of sex and sexuality. Then choose one or two to use to address the significance of patterns in the representation of sex and sexuality. How are sex and sexuality used as a code for addressing broader changes in U.S. society?

• Otherness: Consider the ways in which difference and otherness are made into part of the plots, structures, and themes of regionalist writings we've been reading. Then choose two such writings to compare and contrast on one of the following questions: a) what is at stake in the similarities and differences in the ways difference/otherness are used in literature of the same region? b) what is at stake in the similarities and differences in the ways difference/otherness are used in literature from different regions?

• Audience: Make an argument as to whether the "Literature of Region" unit better supports the notion that late-nineteenth-century writers faced a fractured, localized, regionalized literary market and audience, or whether the patterns across "regionalist" or "local color" writings from this period suggest the emergence of a national market and audience for such writing. Support your argument using relevant evidence from the unit.

ENGL 334: Realism and Naturalism in American Literature, Fall 2004
Created: 10/18/04 2:10 pm
Last modified: 10/22/04 4:27 pm