Critical Response Essay #1: Assignment Sheet

Due: Monday, 2/14/00, in the envelope outside my office door (Fenton 240) by 5:00 pm. It is your responsibility to complete your papers on time in the proper format; late papers will be accepted, but they will lose one-third of a grade for every day they are late and I will not provide comments on them.

Format: 4-6 pages (roughly 800-1800 words), with a title and a heading that includes the course number or title, your name, and the date; word-processed; double-spaced; font Times 12 point or similar; preferably laser-printed. [Please be aware that you'll get a better grade if you first develop your ideas fully, without feeling that you have to stop at a certain page or word limit, and then go back and condense, cut, and otherwise revise so as to be as concise, clear, and persuasive as possible. Don't let the page limit limit your exploration of ideas.]

Assignment Options: You have several options for your first critical response paper; however, unlike some of your other papers in this course, you will not have the option of making up your own topic or question for this first paper. With my permission, though, you may choose to address one of these options by writing a creative response paper.

• 1. Consider how you'd answer the following questions--what makes a "good" ghost story? what are the criteria for quality/excellence in this genre?--and write a short essay in which you attempt to persuade your audience of the validity of your views on what constitutes a "good" ghost story, using at least two texts that we've read thus far to illustrate/justify your claims (only one of these texts may be taken from DuWayne Bowen's One More Story). To persuade your audience effectively, you must consider the range of possible criteria for determining a "good" ghost story and show why you are justified in emphasizing the particular criteria you believe are most important. Your goal here should not be to take two stories and show which one is better, or to come up with criteria and show how two stories fit them, but instead to convince your readers which criteria for identifying literary value are most important. (Remember here that showing how one story is "better" than another can be a way of generating/defending a set of criteria to determine literary excellence [it can be a means to an end, so long as it is not an end in itself]; remember, too, that we're not talking about storytelling in general but about a particular kind of story--the ghost story.) Criteria for evaluation (in relative order of importance): demonstrated understanding of the requirements of the assignment; precision and coherence of criteria for "good ghost story" offered; persuasiveness of arguments and examples; effectiveness of organization/structure in developing your arguments; clarity and style of argumentation; conciseness and preciseness of language use; command of the conventions of college writing (citation style, grammar, punctuation, etc.).
• 2. "Bone Girl," "A Ghost Story," "Po' Sandy," The Turn of the Screw, and "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly" each make an implicit argument about how best to tell a ghost story and what the best kinds of ghost stories are. Your task if you choose this essay option is to select one of these works and identify as precisely as possible what its implicit argument is, show how this argument is made in the story, and discuss how persuasive you find it. Your goal here should be to assess the implicit claims a story makes about what constitutes an interesting way of telling a ghost story and what kinds of ghost stories are interesting. Criteria for evaluation (in relative order of importance): demonstrated understanding of the requirements of the assignment; accuracy and specificity of identification of story's implicit argument; precision and persuasiveness of analysis of the way in which this argument is made; thoughtfulness of discussion of argument's persuasiveness; effectiveness of organization/structure in developing your points; conciseness and preciseness of language use; command of the conventions of college writing (citation style, grammar, punctuation, etc.).
• 3. "Shakespeare in the Bush," "Bone Girl," "A Ghost Story," and "Po' Sandy," each feature a narrator (or, in the case of Chesnutt's story, narrators) with an agenda. Your task if you choose this essay option is to select one of these works and relate the narrator's purposes/goals/intentions for telling the story to the author's purposes/goals/intentions for writing the story (using textual evidence to support your claims). Your goal here should be to use your reading of the narrator's purposes/goals/intentions as evidence to support your argument about authorial intention. Criteria for evaluation (in relative order of importance): demonstrated understanding of the requirements of the assignment; coherence and plausibility of argument about authorial intentions; accuracy and specificity of identification of narrator's agenda; effectiveness of organization/structure in developing your points; conciseness and preciseness of language use; command of the conventions of college writing (citation style, grammar, punctuation, etc.).
• 4. Consider the following questions--what have you found to be the most interesting use of ghosts (or haunting, spirit possession, etc.) thus far this semester (either by an author or a narrator) and why is it interesting? what kinds of strategies and motivations (means and ends) for using ghosts in a narrative do you think are most interesting?--and make an argument about what constitutes the most interesting use of ghosts/haunting/possession/etc. in narrative, drawing on at least two texts to illustrate/justify your claims (only one of these texts may be taken from DuWayne Bowen's One More Story). Your goal here should not be to take one story and argue that it is interesting, nor should it be to go through every story we've read and include a sentence or two on how interesting it was; rather, your goal should be to persuade your audience that what you claim is an interesting use of ghosts actually is one. (Remember here that for your essay to be as persuasive as possible you will need to specify what you mean by "interesting"--for instance, is it unusual, atypical, a departure from a norm, or is it a nice twist on a familiar convention? Remember, too, that contrasting your "interesting" use with other less "interesting" uses is an effective persuasive strategy. Finally, it may help you come up with your argument to see what arguments other critics have made about the uses of ghosts in fiction; for a sampling of such arguments, click here.) Criteria for evaluation (in relative order of importance): demonstrated understanding of what constitutes an authorial or narratorial "use" of a ghost; precision and coherence of criteria for "interesting use" offered; persuasiveness of arguments and examples; effectiveness of organization/structure in developing your arguments; clarity and style of argumentation; conciseness and preciseness of language use; command of the conventions of college writing (citation style, grammar, punctuation, etc.).

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.

Advice: Every option asks you to write a persuasive or argumentative (in the good sense) essay, in which you develop and defend a central idea or thesis. However, as opposed to many of your high school essays, this essay will not require you to follow a cookie-cutter "5-paragraph" structure. In fact, you are encouraged to experiment with alternatives to this method of organization that requires you to fit your ideas into a pre-set format: the "funnel" introduction that culminates in a three-part thesis statement, three body paragraphs that each give an argument and evidence in support of the main thesis, and a conclusion in which you restate your thesis. I will still be looking for an organization/structure that effectively advances your main argument, but the key difference is that while in the past you may have been graded on how well you fit your ideas to the pre-set form, now you will be graded on how effectively the form you choose for the essay fits your ideas. This actually sets higher standards for your writing than in the past, and many students find it difficult to make the transition to the expectations of college writing. Please see me if you have any questions about what constitutes an argument, structuring or organizing your essay, or any other aspect of the writing process.

Rewrite Policy: I will accept rewrites of this first critical response essay, so long as you get them to me within two weeks of receiving comments on your previous draft from me. Because for a good number of you this will be your first piece of formal writing in an English class in your college careers, those who get their rewrites in on time can have their original grade replaced by the new grade.

EN 209: Novels and Tales, Spring 2000
Created: 2/1/00, 4:11 pm
Last modified: 2/10/00, 2:47 pm