Comp 111: English Composition II
Bucks County Community College, Fall 2002
Section 71: Mondays 2:00-4:45, F 311

Please note that this syllabus is available on the web at the address in the upper right-hand corner.  All essay topics -- plus many additional course materials I'll distribute in class as the semester goes on -- will be posted to that address.

Instructor:Dr. Stephen doCarmo
Office: Penn 131
Hours: MWF 11:00-12:00, 1:00-2:00
Phone: 215-968-8267
E-mail: docarmos@bucks.edu

Required Texts
The Norton Introduction to Literature.  Edited by Jerome Beaty et al.  Shorter 8th edition.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Writing Research Papers, by James D. Lester.  10th edition.

Catalog Course Description
In English Composition II, students write critical themes assigned in response to classroom study of short stories, poems, and plays.  After instruction in research techniques, students also write a research paper.

Format
Classes will consist of lectures, small-group workshopping, class discussions, occasional film viewings, and one-on-one conferences with me, your instructor.

Course Objectives
We've got three chief objectives in this course.  They are:

1.  To have you gain an appreciation for imaginative literature, namely drama, poetry, and fiction;
2.  To have you gain the research and bibliographic skills you'll need not only in other college courses but, quite possibly, in your professional life as well;
3.  To give you ample opportunity to improve your reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills, which are vital, of course, to all academic and professional pursuits, not just those associated with English class.

Course Requirements
1.  You'll need to write three multi-paragraph "lit" essays that will grow out of our three different literature units -- one on drama, one on fiction, and one on poetry.  The first and third essays (your drama and fiction ones) should be about four pages long each, and you'll do them at home, on your own time.  The second essay (your poetry one) should be several handwritten pages long and will be done in class.

All of these essays, whether written at home or in class, should possess the attributes of good writing you learned in Comp 110 -- that is, they should demonstrate unity, coherence, organization, clarity, good sentence structure, proper punctuation, correct diction and correct grammar.  Most importantly, they'll need to contain interesting and sophisticated ideas about the literature they respond to.  And while I'll provide you topic questions for each essay well in advance of its due dates (even the in-class one), those questions will be broad and interpretable enough to require you to do your own thinking, not just spew back information and ideas already familiar to you from class.

I'll put written comments on each of your lit essays and will give them A-F grades, with +'s and -'s possible.  Due dates are on the schedule at the end of this syllabus.

2.  You'll need to take about ten unannounced reading quizzes on the assigned plays, fictions, and poems.  They'll be short (five questions each), will be given at the very start of class meetings, and will focus on important information from the readings rather than on abstract matters like theme or symbol.  (In other words, I might ask you how a certain character dies in act II of a play; I won't ask what her death "means" within the work as a whole.  That's the sort of thing we'll sort out in class together.)  Since these quizzes are information driven, you need only read, reasonably carefully, for each and every class meeting to do well on them.

I'll grade each of your quizzes on a 1-5 scale.  Get all five questions right and you'll get a "5," or an A, basically.  A 4 is a B, a 3 is a C, a 2 is a D, and a 1 is an F.

I'll drop your two lowest quiz grades at the end of the semester, so don't panic if you bomb a couple of them.  Just panic if you start bombing them consistently.

3.  You'll need to write a 2,500-word (ten pages, roughly) research paper on a topic of your choice.  I'll give you more information about what I expect from this paper as the semester wears on.  But let me go ahead and tell you here that it will need to

a. express your considered, sophisticated opinion on a topic of general public interest;
b. be written for a general, "lay" audience;
c.  make use of ten to fifteen good external sources (and we'll talk in class about what "good" means);
d. demonstrate all the same attributes of good writing your lit-based essays do -- that is, those same ones from English 110;
e. adhere to MLA format, which we'll discuss.
I'll grade your research paper on an A-F scale, with +'s and -'s possible.  Its due date is on the schedule at the end of this syllabus.

4.  You'll need to turn in two developmental documents related to your research paper: a proposal and, later, a progress report.  When the time comes I'll give you forms to direct you in writing these.  The "progress report," I can tell you now, will require you to turn in an outline of your paper-in-progress and notes on external sources you've been reading.

These two documents are not graded except as part of your end-of-the-term participation grade (see below).  But unless they have been turned in, I will notaccept your research paper at the end of the semester!  So please be sure to get them done.  Their due dates are on the schedule at the end of this syllabus.

5.  You'll need to participate during class meetings.  Come to class consistently and on time, be considerate of me and your classmates, speak up intelligently in both small-group and large-group discussions, pull your weight in whatever other in-class activities I ask you to take part in, put an appropriate amount of time and effort into the two developmental documents for your research paper, and I'll happily give you an "A" for this portion of your grade.

Grading
Your first at-home lit essay (the one for our drama unit) will be worth 10% of your final grade.
Your second at-home lit essay (the one for our fiction unit) will be worth 15%.
Your in-class lit essay (that for our poetry unit) will be worth 10%.
Your reading quizzes will be worth 15%.
Your research paper will be worth 40%.
Your class participation will be worth 10%.

Attendance
You get two free skips -- "excused" or "unexcused" doesn't matter.  After that, your final grade for the course starts falling two thirds of a letter grade (from a C+ to a C-, for instance) per absence.

Since I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences, you shouldn't burn up your skips thinking it'll be okay to miss more classes later should you get sick or have an emergency.  Your skips are for sickness and emergencies.  So budget them wisely.

Please note that no one who misses more than four class meetings, no matter how extraordinary the circumstances, will be able to pass this course.

Rewrites
You can rewrite two of your three lit-based essays, if you want, provided you (a) turn in the rewrite within seven days of your getting back the original, and (b) make significant improvements to the essay.  Simply re-arranging a few sentences or fixing some punctuation won't get you a new grade.

If you get a failing grade on a lit essay (a D or an F), you must rewrite it within seven days -- otherwise you won't have fulfilled the requirements for the course.  You can't revise more than two failing lit essays, though, and you can't improve them to better than a C+, so please don't think of this as a safety net.

Please note also that late papers can't be rewritten/resubmitted.  What you get is what you're stuck with.

Skipping Assignments
Sorry, but you can't. All writing assignments (the three lit essays, the research paper, the developmental documents for the research paper) must be submitted to me; otherwise you won't receive a passing grade for the course.

Late Work
You may turn in late either of your two at-home lit essays at a penalty of one full letter grade per class period.  You may also turn in late either of the developmental documents for your research paper at the same penalty.  Penalties begin at the end of the class period when the assignment was due.

You can't turn in your in-class lit essay late; it's due at the end of that class period, no matter what.

You can't make up missed reading quizzes.

You also can't turn in your research paper late, since it's not due till after our last day of class anyhow.  If for any reason you're not going to be able to meet the research-paper deadline specified on the course schedule, it's imperative you talk to me well beforehand.

Tutoring
If you need help with a writing assignment for this course, please work either with me or with someone in the Tutoring Center (Library 121).

If you'd like to listen to the advice of a friend, family member, or classmate who's read a rough draft of yours, that's fine -- great, even.  But nobody besides me or a Bucks tutor should be helping you actually write sentences for an essay for this course, all right?  Please talk to me if you're confused about what constitutes too much help.

Plagiarism
This is from the College Catalogue:

The expectation at Bucks County Community College is that the principles of truth and honesty will be rigorously followed in all academic endeavors.  This assumes that all the work will be done by the person who purports to do the work without unauthorized aids.  In addition, when making use of language, information and some ideas not his or her own, whether quoting them directly or paraphrasing them in his or her own words, the student must attribute the source of the material in some standard form, such as naming the source in the text or offering a footnote.
There's the school's official line.  Let me add this: it's almost always comically easy to recognize plagiarized writing.  And there's no easier way to catch it than when it's taken from the web.

I've been teaching writing in college for eight years now.  And I've met very, very few students who weren't able to pass a comp course by simply doing their own work.  You don't need to cheat to get through English 111.  But you may need help.  I expect to give lots of it, as do the people in the Tutoring Center.  So please come put us to work.

Course Schedule
Please bring your Writing Research Papers text to every class meeting designated "research writing workshop."
Also, be sure to do the readings before the date on which they appear!

Monday Sept. 9: Introduction to the course.  We'll go over the syllabus, and I'll probably collect a writing sample from you, too.  Then we'll beging our DRAMA UNIT by having you read, during class, the first pages of Miller's Death of a Salesman, (1543-1555 in your Norton).  Then we'll discuss it.

Monday Sept. 16: Discussion of the remainder of Miller's Death of a Salesman.  We'll meet in our regular room, but we'll spend some time this afternoon in the library, too, learning some research techniques.

Monday Sept. 23: Discussion of the entirety of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson (in your Norton).  I'll bring you the topic question for Lit Essay #1 on this day.  We'll also have a research writing workshop.

Monday Sept.30: Discussion of David Ives' Sure Thing (pgs. 1030-1039) and Susan Glaspell's Trifles (pgs. 1019-1029).  I'll also do one-on-one conferences with folks on their Lit Essay #1 drafts.

Monday Oct. 7: Lit Essay #1 due.  We'll also begin our POETRY UNIT by discussing Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" (619), Etheridge Knight's "Hard Rock..." (624), Maxine Kumin's "Woodchucks" (627), William Blake's "London" (625), and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" (634), A.R. Ammons' "Needs" (652), Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" (658), Walt Whitman's "[I Celebrate Myself...]" (658), John Donne's "The Flea" (664), and Mary Oliver's "Singapore" (683).

Monday Oct. 14: Research Paper Proposal due.  Also, discussion of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" (699), Sharon Olds' "Sex without Love" (701), Randall Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" (727), Michael Harper's "Dear John, Dear Coltrane" (762), and Poe's "The Raven" (754).

Monday Oct. 21: Discussion of E.A. Robinson's "Mr. Flood's Party" (770), Langston Hughes' "Harlem (A Dream Deferred)" (908), Marge Piercy's "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" (918), Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" (964), and of four four or five poems I'll have photocopied and given you well before this date.  I'll also bring the topic question for Lit Essay #2 (the in-class one) on this day.

Monday Oct. 28: Research writing workshop.  Then we'll discuss Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" (926) and Wallace Stevens' "Anecdote of the Jar" (964).  Then Lit Essay #2 is due.  (You'll write it in class, don't forget!)

Monday Nov. 4: Beginning of our FICTION UNIT.  Discussion of Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" (41-63), Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" (70-74), Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (75-78), and Bharati Mukherjee's "The Management of Grief" (224-36).

Monday Nov. 11: Discussion of O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to FInd" (323-34) and of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, through pg. 22.  We'll also have a research writing workshop.

Monday Nov. 18: Discussion of The Great Gatsby, through pg. 146.  I'll also bring you the topic question for Lit Essay #3 on this day.

Monday Nov. 25: Discussion of the remainder of The Great Gatsby (that is, through pg. 182) and of Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" (537-49 in your Norton).  We'll also have a research writing workshop.

Monday Dec. 2: Discussion of Carver's "Cathedral" (580-90).  Small- and large-group workshopping on several students' drafts of Lit Essay #3.

Monday Dec. 9: Lit Essay #3 due.  After that...class replaced by one-on-one conferences with me on your research paper.

Monday Dec. 16: Research paper due, with all rough drafts, annotations, outlines, developmental documents, photocopied sources, etc.  Also...course wrap-up; instructor evaluation.
 

Topic for the First "Lit" Essay
We’ve now read two plays (Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman [1949] and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson [1987]) that express dissent from certain versions of the
American dream.  Please choose one of these plays, describe its objection to the American dream as it conceives it, and – while making good use of your own
experiences in and observations about present-day America – explain why you either do or don’t appreciate its dissent.

Additional Requirements and Pointers
Your essay should possess the attributes of good writing taught to you in Comp 110 – that is, it should demonstrate unity, coherence, organization, clarity, good sentence
structure, proper punctuation, correct diction and correct grammar.

The assignment essentially requires you to write in the first person – that is, to describe personal experiences and observations while using the “I” pronoun.  You can, then,
consider yourself officially licensed to do so -- no matter what your high school teacher told you!

You should absolutely, positively quote the play you’re writing about to help you support your claims about it.  If you’re quoting from within a single line of dialogue, just put
the character’s words within regular quotation marks, like this:

In a heated argument, Biff tells his father, “I am not a leader of men, Willy” (1608).

If you’re quoting a chunk of the text where the speaker changes, please double indent from the left (or “block quote”), and reproduce the text so that it looks exactly as it
does in your anthology, without quotation marks around it.  For instance:

WILLY: [Astonished.]  What’re you doing?  What’re you doing?  [To LINDA.]  Why is he crying?
BIFF: [Crying, broken.]  Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake?  Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?  (1609)
Also, after any direct quotation you use, please put the page number it appears on in parentheses at the end of the quote.

Please don’t use exorbitantly long quotes.  Use just what you need to help you make your point.  If you want to cut stuff out of the middle of a long quote, show that you’ve
done so by inserting ellipses (…) at the point where words have been excised.

Please don’t use any sources beyond the play you’re writing about – unless you talk to me about it first.

If briefly discussing a second (or even third or fourth) play we’ve read will help you illuminate some aspect of the main one you’ve chosen, please feel free to do so.  (Don’t
feel obliged to do this, however.)

Your essay should be about four pages long.  It should be double-spaced.  It should be written in twelve-point font.  It should have one-inch margins on all its pages, top
and bottom, left and right.  It should also have a good title!

I think that’s it.  If you’ve got questions…DON’T BE SHY!  Get in touch with me. This essay is due at the start of class on Wednesday Oct. 7th.
 

Instructions and Requirements for Research-Paper Annotations

An "annotation" is the set of notes you produce on a single source you read.  For your Comp 111 research paper, you should annotate about twenty sources -- at least a dozen of which will actually wind up cited in your essay.

A "source" can be...

If you're not sure if something you want to annotate will count as a legitimate source, talk to me about it.

PLEASE NOTE: Of your twenty annotated sources, no more than a dozen should be websites, pamphlets, reviews, and/or newspaper articles!This means that at least eight should be entire books, individual book chapters, interviews with specialists, and/or articles from periodicals!

Each of your twenty annotations should be done in one of two general styles: quotation or summary.

1.  Quotation notes contain a number of direct quotations pulled word for word from the original source.  Those direct quotations always, always have quotation marks around them, so you don't get confused later about which words were or weren't your own.  Those direct quotes also have page numbers clearly attributed to them.

You should write quotation notes for any source you suspect you'll want to directly quote or paraphrase in your paper.

Besides containing words taken directly from a source, good quotation notes also contain at least a few sentences' worth of your own thoughts on why and how the quotations you've written down will be useful to you in your project.

2.  Summary notes are a shorter, quicker affair.  Use them when you're annotating a source that doesn't have information or ideas vital to your own project but does contribute to your general knowledge of your subject matter.  Use them also if you think the source might become more interesting to you later on, if your project makes a particular shift or turn.

Summary notes are typically just a (good) paragraph's worth of your own writing about the source being annotated.  That paragraph should restate the source's major point(s) and argument(s) and offer your own thoughts on why they aren't vital to your own project right now (or on why they might be interesting later, if you develop your thesis in a particular way).

Of the twenty (or so) annotations you do, no more than five should be in the "summary" style!

Each of your annotations should...

You can hand-write your annnotations.  You can type them.  You can do them on note cards or looseleaf or legal paper -- whatever.  I should just be able to easily see, when I collect them, where each one stops and the next one begins.

That's it.  Let me know if you've got questions!
 

Guide for Writing the Research-Paper Proposal

Please type your answers to each of the following on a separate sheet of paper!  Your answers are due in class on Friday Oct. 11th.
 

1.  What will the general subject matter of your paper be (e.g. divorce law, animal rights, music on the internet, U.S. Middle-East policy, etc.)?

2.  What point do you think you’ll want to argue about the subject matter above?  (In other words…what are you right now imagining your paper’s thesis will be?)

3.  What type of hard facts and/or statistics will you need to find to strengthen your argument?

4.  The Ebscohost database, remember, allows you to ask for publications related to certain subject areas.  Are there any subject areas you know you’ll want to check off before you begin your Ebscohost search (e.g. law, business, psychology, education, the arts, politics, etc.)?

5.  Are you likely, do you think, to find entire books pertinent to your argument?  Why or why not?

6.  What terms, off the top of your head, do you imagine you’ll want to search on to find good books and articles on your topic?

7.  What ideas and information would the perfect book or article for your purposes contain?

8.  What personal experiences do you think you can bring to bear to strengthen your argument?
 

Topic for the Second “Lit” Essay
(To be written in class on Monday, Oct. 28th)

Please write a multi-paragraph essay in response to the following question:

What are poems for?

Additional Requirements and Pointers
The topic question can probably be taken in either of two ways.  It might be asking, “What purpose do poems serve?”, or it might be asking, “What do poems advocate?”  You can answer either of those – or both, if they seem sufficiently related.  Your reader should be able to easily tell, though, how you’ve chosen to take the question.

You should quote poems we’ve read for class in your essay.  How many is up to you – but I wouldn’t advise your trying to write about more than two or three of them, since beyond that you might be spreading yourself thin.

Even though your essay will be a response to one particular assignment given to you by one particular instructor, please write with a general audience of strangers in mind – not just me.

If you were to poll literary critics and poetry readers from across the ages, you would, of course, get hundreds of answers to the question I’ve asked.  It’s not your job to give all the possible answers to the topic question!  It’s your job to give your honest and thoughtful answer to it.  It’s a subjective question; don’t waste time in your essay making apologies for giving a subjective answer.

As with your first essay, you’re totally free to write in the first person and to relate personal stories whenever they’ll help you make a point.

You can bring your Norton Introduction to Literature to class – along with a rough, not overly detailed outline for the essay you’re going to write.  You can bring a laptop computer, too, if you’re more comfortable using a word processor than writing by hand.

Since your essay will be “on-the-spot” writing, I won’t hold a reasonable number of spelling and punctuation errors against you.  So don’t burn a lot of time proofreading.

I think that’s it.  Please let me know if I can help you get ready.
 

How to Credit (in MLA Style) a Writer Whose Idea You Want to Use in Your Own Essay

I’m working here with the following source:

Davis, Fred.  “Of Maids’ Uniforms and Blue Jeans: The Drama of Status Ambivalences in Clothing and  Fashion.”  Qualitative Sociology.  12.4 (1989): 66-74.

If I want to quote this article in my own paper (using MLA style), I can do this:

In an essay entitled “Of Maids’ Uniforms and Blue Jeans,” Fred Davis tells us that

since the dawn of fashion in the West some seven hundred years ago, probably no other article of clothing has in the course of its evolution has more fully served as a vehicle for the expression of status ambivalences and ambiguities than blue jeans.  Some of the social history supporting this statement is by now generally well known.  (Davis 67)
From there Davis goes on to describe that social history, including such moments as….

Here, since I’m working with a lengthy quote, I’ve “block quoted” Davis’ text, double-indenting his words.  Note that I don’t put quotation marks around his words in this case, and I put the citation after the period that ends the sentence.

Or I can do this:

In an essay titled “Of Maids’ Uniforms and Blue Jeans,” writer Fred Davis argues that an individual’s clothing can serve as a “vehicle for the expression of status ambivalences and ambiguities” (Davis 67).  Loosely speaking, he is saying our clothes can send mixed messages about our identities.

The quotation I’ve used is relatively short, so I’ve just put quotation marks around Davis’ words and incorporated them right into my own sentence.  After I close the quotation marks, I put the author’s name and the page number his words appeared on in parentheses.  Only after that do I end my sentence with a period.

Or I can do this:

It has been pointed out that an individual’s clothes can allow her to send ambivalent or ambiguous messages about her social status (Davis 67).  Fashion has long been a way for us to send mixed signals about our identities.

Even though I’ve only paraphrased Davis here (that is, I’ve re-expressed his thought in my own words) I’ve still given him credit because I’ve used his idea.

BUT I CAN’T DO THIS!:

An individual’s clothes can allow him to send ambivalent or ambiguous messages about his social status.  Fashion has long been a way for us to send mixed signals about our identities.

Here I’ve borrowed Davis’s idea, but I’ve given him no credit whatsoever.  You can’t do this, of course, because it amounts to plagiarism.
 

Instructions for the Researched Essay
(40% of your final grade; due Dec. 16th)

Please write a roughly ten-page (2,500-word) researched essay expressing and explaining your opinion on some important current cultural issue.

Additional Requirements and Pointers
When I take up your final draft, I should also get

(1) whatever drafts, outlines, and/or organizational exercises you’ve got that helped you produce your final draft, and
(2) annotations for at least twenty “outside” sources you’ve read while preparing to write your paper.
Please remember that of the twenty (or more) annotations I get with your final draft, at least eight should be for entire books, parts of books, and/or articles published in popular magazines or scholarly journals.  The other dozen (or more) can be for good web sites, newspaper articles, pamphlets, reviews, and/or personal interviews with experts in the field you’re writing about.

If you give me twenty annotations, at least fifteen should be done in “quotation” style; it’s fine if five (or fewer) are done “summary” style.  See the annotation instructions I gave you earlier in the semester for more information.

Of the twenty (or more) sources you annotate, roughly a dozen should actually wind up quoted and/or paraphrased in your paper (and so listed on the “works cited” page at the end of your paper).

If between ten and 15% of your final draft is comprised of direct quotes and/or close paraphrases from outside sources…that’s good.  If, as you’re working, it becomes clear you’re going to deviate significantly from that rule of thumb, talk to me about it.

Please make sure the entirety of your paper adheres strictly to MLA form.  You have, to help you with this, your Writing Research Papers book, your MLA pamphlet from the Bucks tutoring center, and the MLA “template” I’ve given you.

Your paper should have a clear and unmistakable thesis.  It should be well organized.  It should have clear transitions between its paragraphs.  It should have ample support for its major claims.  It should use appropriate diction.  And it should be well proofread, with very few errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation.

As with the other essays you’ve written for this class, it’s fine if you write in the first person and include accounts of your own personal experiences.  Considering, however, the amount of researched information you'll need to include in this essay, you may have somewhat less room for “personal” writing in this assignment than in previous ones.

Your paper shouldn’t have a cover sheet or a plastic cover.  It should look exactly like the MLA “template” paper I gave you in early November.

I think that's it.  It's imperative you come to me with whatever questions you've got, so...don't be shy.  You know where to find me.
 

Instructions for the Research-Essay Progress Report
(Due Monday Dec. 2nd)

On as many separate sheets as you need, please respond to each of the following:

1.  What is the thesis – or central idea – of your essay, as it will actually appear in your essay?  You should by now be able to state it clearly, in a full sentence, making sure it’s both general enough to bear ten pages of investigation and specific enough to be fully covered in that same space.

2.  Please provide a loose outline (whether a lines-and-circles thing or a conventional numbers-and-letters affair is up to you) indicating the major stages your essay will go through as it explains, supports, and defends its thesis.

3.  For how many sources have you done “quotation” style annotations?  For how many have you done “summary” ones?

4.  What type of information do you need that you still haven’t accessed?  (To help you decide this, look at your outline and remember that all of your major points and claims should be well informed and well supported.  Which ones aren’t yet?)

5.  Is there any type of information or source you’re having no luck finding on your own that a reference librarian might be able to help you with?  What is it?  What specifically will you be telling the librarian you need?

6.  What’s the biggest difficulty you’ve encountered in this project to date?

7.  What have you read/learned in your research that’s most surprised or interested you?

8.  Have your intentions for this project changed significantly since you began it?  How so?

9.  What skill do you feel you’ve become most proficient at, research-wise?

10.  What part of the research process most befuddles or pains you?  Why?

11.  What’s the main thing you’re going to want me to help you with when you come for your conference during the week of December 9th?
 

Topic for the Third “Lit” Essay
Due December 6th, 2002

Objective:
To have you use your interpretive, analytical, and argumentative skills to produce a well-written essay on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Assignment:
Please write a roughly four-page essay in response to the following prompt:

What is the central point of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?  In other words, what big idea is the novel trying to convey?  What does it want us to come away knowing about America, the world, or human nature generally that we may not have known before?  In answering this, please touch on some other text we’ve read during our “fiction” unit, explaining its similarity or difference, in some regard, to Fitzgerald’s novel.

Additional Requirements and Pointers:
To earn a high grade, your essay will need to possess the attributes of good writing we’ve been acknowledging all semester: a clear central thesis, coherence, good organization, clarity, sufficient support for major claims, good sentence structure, proper punctuation, correct diction, and correct grammar.

As with your previous two “lit” essays, you should feel free to write in the first person and to convey personal stories if they’ll help you make or illustrate a point.

You should absolutely, positively quote the texts you’re writing about to support your claims about them.

Please remember to always introduce your quotes, providing your readers the context they need to understand them.  Long quotes should be kept to a minimum – but if you do use a quote over four lines long, “block” it in the fashion we’ve discussed in class.

Please be sure to put page numbers in parentheses after direct quotes and close paraphrases.  (No “works cited” page is necessary for this essay, though.)

Please don’t use any sources beyond the fictions you’re writing about – unless you talk to me about it first.  (This includes the Matthew Bruccoli critical texts included in our edition of Gatsby.)

Though I’ve asked you to touch on some other text we’ve read in our “fiction” unit (that is, one of our short stories), you should give the bulk of your attention to The Great Gatsby.  I only want to see that you can at some point reference another work and make some interesting connection between it and Gatsby.

Your essay should be double-spaced.  It should be written in twelve-point font.  It should have one-inch margins on all its pages, top and bottom, left and right.  And it should have a good title!

I think that’s it.  If you’ve got questions, or if I can help you get your draft started, get in touch!
 

Topic for the Third “Lit” Essay
Due December 6th, 2002

Objective:
To have you use your interpretive, analytical, and argumentative skills to produce a well-written essay on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Assignment:
Please write a roughly four-page essay in response to the following prompt:

What is the central point of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?  In other words, what big idea is the novel trying to convey?  What does it want us to come away knowing about America, the world, or human nature generally that we may not have known before?  In answering this, please touch on some other text we’ve read during our “fiction” unit, explaining its similarity or difference, in some regard, to Fitzgerald’s novel.

Additional Requirements and Pointers:
To earn a high grade, your essay will need to possess the attributes of good writing we’ve been acknowledging all semester: a clear central thesis, coherence, good organization, clarity, sufficient support for major claims, good sentence structure, proper punctuation, correct diction, and correct grammar.

As with your previous two “lit” essays, you should feel free to write in the first person and to convey personal stories if they’ll help you make or illustrate a point.

You should absolutely, positively quote the texts you’re writing about to support your claims about them.

Please remember to always introduce your quotes, providing your readers the context they need to understand them.  Long quotes should be kept to a minimum – but if you do use a quote over four lines long, “block” it in the fashion we’ve discussed in class.

Please be sure to put page numbers in parentheses after direct quotes and close paraphrases.  (No “works cited” page is necessary for this essay, though.)

Please don’t use any sources beyond the fictions you’re writing about – unless you talk to me about it first.  (This includes the Matthew Bruccoli critical texts included in our edition of Gatsby.)

Though I’ve asked you to touch on some other text we’ve read in our “fiction” unit (that is, one of our short stories), you should give the bulk of your attention to The Great Gatsby.  I only want to see that you can at some point reference another work and make some interesting connection between it and Gatsby.

Your essay should be double-spaced.  It should be written in twelve-point font.  It should have one-inch margins on all its pages, top and bottom, left and right.  And it should have a good title!

I think that’s it.  If you’ve got questions, or if I can help you get your draft started, get in touch!

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