English 10: Intro to Literature, Paper 1
From UCSB English Department Knowledge Base
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Due: August 21, 2006
In this paper, you will be examining one of the “stories for further reading” in the Backpack Literature text. This assignment requires you to:
- Choose a story that we will not read as a class, from the “stories for further reading” chapter.
- Analyse how one or more of the following aspects of the story contributes to the meaning of the story: point of view, character, tone, theme, setting, symbolism.
- Come up with and Argue a thesis about the story's meaning and use evidence about how that meaning is conveyed by the story to back up your thesis. (Be as specific as you can in your thesis and in your argument. This does not mean that you have to explain every aspect of the story, but that your paper should help us understand some aspect of the underlying meaning of the work.)
- Title your essay with a phrase that gives some indication of your thesis about which you are writing.
What this means is that you will be working closely with the text, and using the principles of close reading that we have discussed to come up with a specific argument about the story, and to explain how that argument is supported in the story through the different aspects that we have discussed in class. (For example, an essay might discuss the way in which character shapes the commentary on ethics, morality, or religion in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” or how point of view reflects attitudes about war in “The Things they Carried.” You would develop a more specific thesis out of this general topic by doing close reading of the text to figure out what you think is really going on in it.)
Your paper should be 3 - 4 pages in Times Roman 12 pt font, with 1-inch margins. It should follow MLA format guidelines, and should (read must) contain the following:
- A clearly articulated argumentative thesis that stakes a claim about the effect of point of view, character, tone, theme, setting or symbol on the story’s meaning. (Your paper should also address what the broader significance of this is; in other words, “so what”.)
- Specific textual evidence and support for your claims (this means quoting the relevant lines of the story and explaining how they relate to and develop your thesis).
- A conclusion that briefly summarizes your argument AND relates your argument back to its broader context (if we now understand your argument, what does this do to our understanding of the work, its possible social context, etc.)
Remember that you need to work closely with the text. You need to quote relevant parts of the work AND also explain how these sections develop your meaning. Avoid making claims that you cannot and/or do not support from the text. Also, please explain the significance of all the quotes that you do use, and trim the quotes accordingly.
