Today’s Agenda:
30% Literary Argument Essay
Length: 6 pages
Format: Double-spaced, Times New Roman Font, Size 12. No extra spaces between paragraphs.
Research requirements: Two Secondary Sources, neither can be from Wikipedia or Cliff Notes, or any other “simplifying” source – for good reasons I will discuss in class!
This paper represents the culmination of the writing work you began in Eh 111, or in a previous writing course. You will be COMBINING the writing styles you learned in that course with the writing styles we have learned in this course.
Assignment:
You are to write a well-developed argument with a contestable thesis about one or two of the texts we have studied this semester. You may write about any of the short stories or poems we have read this semester expect for the poem you wrote about in your explication essay.
You are to make a contestable argument that includes strong evidence supported by sound reasoning. You are required to incorporate at least two secondary sources into this paper with MLA formatting. The point of this paper is to describe in detail a particular aspect of your chosen text or texts that illuminates a reader’s broader understanding of the work.
For example, one may argue about the particular role a certain literary element plays in a given text. One could focus on how a particular metaphor is sustained and developed over the course of a story or poem, or how a certain theme is communicated to the reader by the author. One may also choose to write in detail about character or characters in a given story, and how their interactions may have an explanation that we have not yet considered. Essentially, you are only bounded by your imagination – AS LONG AS YOUR ARGUMENT IS REASONABLE.
You will find that this paper is MUCH easier to write if you begin with some cursory research into your topic. On-line information can be located here: http://www.husson.edu/?cat_id=709
Let’s take some time today to review some of the poems and short stories we have read, and begin to think about how we may write about these subjects.
Your homework for next time will be to identify a possible subject for your paper, and describe to me in a one page paper what you envision your argument to be about. You also need to identify two possible sources that you will use and cite them on a works cited page using proper MLA format.
LINK TO A MLA GUIDE (the best information is near the bottom of the page)
[...] Thursday, November 13 [...]
Pingback by Welcome to Eh 112: Approaches to Literature « Approaches to Literature, Fall 2008 — September 2, 2008 @ 12:47 pm |
Red Wheelbarrow
Miniver cheevy
I hear America singing
Ulysses
I am nobody, who are you?
Stopping by woods on a snowy evening
The second coming
First death in nova scotia
This is a photograph of me
The flea
The lamb
The raven
Story of an hour
A&P
A good man is hard to find
The things they carried
The lottery
A very old man with enormous wings
Danse russe
The fall of the house of usher
Battle royal
The yellow wallpaper
Mending wall
Comment by Jana Craig — November 13, 2008 @ 5:55 pm |
Metaphors
Comment by Jana Craig — November 13, 2008 @ 5:56 pm |
The Lottery was a story about a generic town which was having a gathering. At first we are unaware of the true motives of the meeting so we are lead to believe that it is just a typical meeting. For them it was. Each family drew a piece of paper from the box and whichever family had the paper with the black dot on it, then drew again with each of the family members drawing this time. Which ever family member had the black dot, was then stoned.
Comment by Gabe Cheney — November 13, 2008 @ 6:07 pm |
Journal –
The short story that i am going to tell you about is The Lottery. The lottery is about a town that meets on a particular day – the 27th and they gather in the center of the town. The families of the town are counted up and then numerous papers are put into a box, with one of the papers having a dot or an X on it. They wait until the whole town has chosen before looking at their paper. Then if that particular paper is chosen, their family then draws to see who is to be stonded to death – a woman is chosen and she fights her right to stay alive, but in the end is stoned to death by the town.
Comment by Jennifer Campbell — November 13, 2008 @ 6:07 pm |
The Yellow Wallpaper
The characters are a husband and wife, whom are going to stay at an old mansion. The wife would like to stay in the rooms on the 1st and 2nd floors, however her husband makes her stay in 3rd floor room, that is similar to an attic. The room has barred windows, scratched floors, and yellow wallpaper. The woman stays in this room and becomes obsessed with the wallpaper. She is not allowed to write in her journal but does so anyway. The woman starts to believe that there is a woman in the wallpaper that creeps. Eventually the woman locks herself in the room and throws the key out the window, and tears down all the wallpaper. Her husband finds her crawling in cirlcles around the floor and faints, and she keeps crawling over him.
Comment by Jana Craig — November 13, 2008 @ 6:10 pm |
I could describe to someone the actual lottery process. From putting a piece of paper into the box for each family to having a family representative draw, then having the entire family draw. The paper is drawn from a box that has been around forever. It is black.
Comment by Gabe Cheney — November 13, 2008 @ 6:19 pm |
The particular part in the short story The lottery that i think i could tell you about is when thay are all standing around in the center of the town when each household is going up and drawing the paper. I can pciture the anticipation on the faces of the towns people, them looking around at the others, wondering what they are thinking, and wondering if they are the one that is going to draw the black dot.
i would compare and contrast the tradititon of this particular town vs. a different story that has a tradition.
Comment by Jennifer Campbell — November 13, 2008 @ 6:19 pm |
The Yellow Wallpaper
The part of the story that i remember most is when she tears down all the wallpaper. She is trying to set herself free from the wallpaper. She sees women outside creeping around, just as she is doing. The woman mentions tying a rope around the woman she was trying to set free, she then ties the rope around herself. This could be symbolic that she is trying to set herself free.
I would argue that becuase the story is written from the womans point of view we do not know the entire story. The woman is actually at a mental hospital. There are peoples names mentioned within the story like “Jenny” who could be a nurse. The woman also mentions people writing reports about her. The fact that she cannot stay in any other room besides that one could mean there are other patients there that occupy the other rooms.
Comment by Jana Craig — November 13, 2008 @ 6:32 pm |
Jennifer Campbell
EH112
November 18, 2008
One of the short stories that we read over the course of the semester so far that I found most powerful was The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. I found the short story to be very powerful and a great way to see how there are different cultures all around the world, and this short story was a perfect example of that. I found that the story was about tradition, and the different traditions there are in the world.
For my paper, I am going to compare and contrast the short stories, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, and A&P, by John Updike. The paper will be comparing and contrasting tradition. Both of the short stories hold traditions, but at the same time, both are very worthy of the life that they lead.
Both stories are great evidence to the different cultures that the world has, and cultures are the backbone to our traditions and the lives that we lead and display to the public. In The Lottery you have a town that has the tradition of stoning a member of the town each year, and them thinking it is something they must live on each year, up until you are the one getting stoned then it is something that is completely wrong. In A&P you have a group of young girls who think wearing a bathing suit is being dressed decently, when in fact to go into the store you have to have clothing that covers your shoulders, shoes, and shorts. The difference in what is decent or not is a great example of how different the world is!
So in conclusion I would compare and contrast the two stories, The Lottery, and A&P.
Bibliography
The lottery –
Blaylock, Janet K. “Short Story Review: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.” Suite101.com. 2 Nov. 2003. 17 Nov. 2008 .
A&P-
Wells, Walter. “Bnet.” John Updike’s “A & P”: a return visit to Araby. Spring 2003. 17 Nov. 2008 .
Comment by Jennifer Campbell — November 18, 2008 @ 2:20 pm |
Gabe Cheney
Adam Crowley
EH 112
18 November 2008
Argument Essay Topic
For this essay I believe that I am going to talk about cultural relativity. I am going to take a couple of short stories and then explain how what might seem crazy or unorthodox to us in 2008, seemed normal during the time period or the situation that was happening in the story. This is not to justify what happens in the story but to show how we can not use modern ethics, morals, and judgement when interpreting a story written about the past. This will obviously depend on how far back in time we go. The further back we go, the more different things appear.
One short story that I am going to use is “Battle Royal”. This is extremely controversial but also proves my point. I could use this because to all those white and black men in the story, what was happening was “normal” so not many thought it to be that big of a deal. When looking at the situation now, after all these years, we realize how horrible it all was.
I could also use “The Lottery”. This one would be hard because there isn’t a specific time period that this is taking place in. It obviously happens in the past because of a couple of out dated references but still could be used as an example because all those people thought that it was normal to stone someone just because they got the black dot.
I may also be able to use “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. This could be hard but there are a few cultural references that would allow me to show the difference between then and now.
Gensler, Harry J. “Ethics 01-Cultural Relativism.” Gensler’s Philosophy Excercises.
2006. John Carroll University. 18 Nov. 2008 .
Griffin, Amy A. “Jackson’s The Lottery.” Explicator 58.1 (Fall99 1999): 44. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 18 Nov. 2008 .
Walker, Brendan. “The Implications of Social Equality in Ellison’s Battle Royal.” Associated Content. 5 Sept. 2008. 18 Nov. 2008
.
Comment by Gabe Cheney — November 18, 2008 @ 4:37 pm |