Essay Three: Extended Analysis

Essay Three: Extended Analysis

Write an extended analysis of one or two of the texts assigned in English 210 (with the exception of The Hound of the Baskervilles and the short story you wrote about for Essay 1); you may analyze a short story, a poem, or a play. You may choose to focus on one work, or you can compare and contrast multiple works (no more than two). This paper cannot be an extension of either Essay 1 or Essay 2. In other words, you cannot write about The Hound of the Baskervilles or the short story you did in previous essays. Using the elements of literary analysis (point of view, character, setting, metaphor, simile, allusion, tone, style, imagery, symbolism, irony, etc.) and one of the critical approaches read about for class (Formalist, Biographical, Historical, Mythological, Psychological, Sociological, Gender, Deconstructionist, or Cultural Studies) analyze the text(s). The use of a critical approach can be implicit. For example, a paper on Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” arguing that Connie suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder does not have to announce itself as a Psychological critique; the critical strategy is clear in the focus of the analysis. Keep in mind that there is a difference between reading “literally” and reading “literarily.” In this essay, we want to read literarily; move beyond the literal to discover a deeper meaning. You may expand from a Q&R Paper. You are encouraged to connect your analysis to our course theme although this is not a requirement.
Purpose: To produce an interesting and detailed analysis of a text we read for class. Pose an interesting, problematic or significant question about your chosen work and use textual evidence and at least 3-5 secondary scholarly sources to support your analysis. In your analysis, you are encouraged to explore varied and diverse avenues of interpretation. Remember, however that your analysis must be grounded in the text; you must support your thesis by quoting selectively from the literary work and from your scholarly sources.
Audience: Your instructor and college-level peers who have read the literary work under discussion; therefore, avoid plot summary.
Format: MLA. Double Spaced, Times New Roman 12pt font, 1 inch margins, header with last name and page number. See Composition 3.0 with Composition Essentials section 1.4 (page 28) for an example.
Research: Use at least 3-5 secondary scholarly sources in this essay to meet minimum requirements; you may use a maximum of 8 sources. Your sources must be scholarly texts chosen from a book or peer-reviewed journal. I.D. Weeks Library has access to incredible research databases [http://www.usd.edu/library]. To find this research, use the following scholarly databases to find journal and book articles which focus on literature and the humanities: MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, Project MUSE, and Humanities International Complete. If you need help in finding an appropriate source, please ask for assistance. The librarians at I.D. Weeks are seasoned in this type of research, as am I, and we are here to help. Research for this essay must be limited to
critical literary scholarship or other scholarly research. NO websites or other non-scholarly
sources may be used. (See the syllabus for other unacceptable research sources). Biographical,
historical, or other scholarly research may be used in addition to literary scholarship.
English 210, Sections U825T and U826T, Spring 2016, Kolbinger Note: Not all of the sources located through the library databases will be scholarly sources. For example, if the icon next to the item in the database says “periodical,” the source is a popular source, not a scholarly source. If you have any questions on if a source will count as scholarly or not, email me and I will gladly help you make the determination.
Due Dates: All drafts must be submitted to the D2L Dropbox by 11:59PM CST on the due date or they will be counted late. 1. Email Proposal for Topic Approval: You will send me an email to have your topic for Essay 3 approved. This email should include which literary text or texts you will be analyzing and the critical approach you will use in your analysis. a. Due: Wednesday, April 13. 2. First Full Draft: You will submit a rough draft of your extended analysis essay to the D2L Dropbox for instructor review. Please include at least 2 writer’s questions with your draft (see explanation below for more details). a. Due: Sunday, April 17.
Note: Although this is a first draft, I encourage you to get as close to the minimum word count and research requirements as possible. In other words, this should be a fairly complete draft, not a sketch or outline. This way, you can use my feedback and your peers’ feedback to do revision and refining work between this draft and the final draft. Turning in only a partial draft at this stage means that you are leaving yourself more drafting and research work than revision work for the final draft, defeating some of the purpose of a multi-draft system. 3. Peer Review over Draft: You will post a draft of your extended analysis essay in the peer review forum under Discuss. You’ll participate in peer review by reading, commenting on, and filling out peer review sheets for two of your peers’ papers. a. Draft posted to Discussion forum, due: Sunday, April 17. b. Completed peer review, due: Sunday, April 24. 4. Completed, Revised Final Draft: You will revise this essay (minimum length of 2100-3000 words, not counting the Works Cited page or the first-page heading) and submit it for grading in the Dropbox in our course in D2L. a. Due: Sunday, May 1. b. Final drafts of Essay 3 will not be accepted after 11:59PM Friday, May 6. 5. Sentence-Level Corrections (SLCs) for 1st Full Draft: You will compose a log of the sentencelevel errors and corrections marked in the instructor’s copy of the 1st draft of the essay and submit it to the D2L Dropbox. See “How to Complete Sentence-Level Corrections” in D2L for details. a. Due: Sunday, May 1. For every day the final draft is late (including weekends and including the due date after class begins) 5% (8.75 points) will be deducted from the essay’s grade. Sentence-level corrections will not be accepted late.
Final drafts that fail to meet minimum research and/or length requirements will receive failing
grades. If you are struggling to meet these requirements, please contact me and/or the Writing
Center for help.
Grading Criteria: See “English 210 Grading Criteria for Major Essays” in the Syllabus. Peer Review: 10 points SLCs: 5 points Essay: 175 points
English 210, Sections U825T and U826T, Spring 2016, Kolbinger
Additional Guidelines for Essay Three:
 Develop a clear, focused thesis that explicitly indicates your proposed interpretation of the literary work(s). Remember that a good thesis statement is debatable.
 Provide an engaging introductory paragraph that includes the author’s name(s), the title(s) of the literary work(s), and the essay’s thesis.
 Use clear topic sentences to support your thesis statement and guide your paragraphs.
 Use substantial textual evidence (quotes and/or paraphrases from the literary work(s)) and 3-5 secondary scholarly sources to support your analysis.
 Always be sure to “unpack” your quotations. All quotes and passages used as support must be adequately developed and explained. A quote cannot stand alone in the essay.
 Use the SSIU method to integrate sources into your writing. Remember to include in-text citations for every quote, paraphrase, and summary. (See the PowerPoint on SSIU on D2L).
 The first time you reference both primary and secondary texts, give author’s full name and the title of book (italics) or article (quotations) in your signal phrase.
 Distinguish between the narrator/speaker and the author—i.e. a first person narrator is not the author.
 Use each paragraph to develop one example/main point of your thesis statement.
 Do not use first person (I, we, our, me). When it comes to a personal interpretation of literature,
you are the authority; however, phrases that begin with “I believe” and “I think” detract from your authority and familiarity with the text and make your interpretation look like simple personal opinion rather than informed, supported analysis.
 Refer to literature in the present tense. Refer to past historical and biographical events in the past tense.
 Plagiarized writing can result in automatic course failure and recycled writing can result in being dropped from the course. This essay must be an original work created by you for this class this semester.
 A works cited page must accompany this essay; include a bibliographic citation on the
works cited page for the literary work(s) you analyze.
Writer’s Questions: I encourage you to turn in at least 2 writer’s questions with the first draft of each of the major essays. These are questions that you, as a writer, would like to ask your audience, and they should be focused on areas of your essay that you would like additional feedback on. These should not be yes/no questions. You can leave these questions in the comments area of the Dropbox when you submit your draft. Alternatively, you can include them at the bottom of your works cited page. I will answer these questions in either the marginal comments or the end comment on your first draft. Examples: 1. How can I strengthen my thesis statement? 2. The transition between paragraphs 3 and 4 feels really rough. What suggestions do you have on making this transition smoother?

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