Dr. Slobodchikoff, ENG 1102 MWF, Fall 2018
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ESSAY #2: FICTION
LITERARY ANALYSIS OF A SHORT STORY (750 words)
Final draft Due: Monday, September 17, 2018 at the beginning of class and no later. No emailed copies will be accepted. A penalty of 10% (1 letter grade) will be assessed for every day
that your essay is late.
Essay Submission
Submit your essay to the Canvas course site where it will be screened for plagiarism via
Turnitin.com. Any essay which is plagiarized will receive a grade of 0%. A student who
plagiarizes in this course will fail it.
Assignment Description
In this essay, you are asked to analyze ANY short story from our textbook. Your task is to write
a detailed literary analysis of this story. This essay relies mainly on textual support from the
primary text, but includes at least 3 secondary sources that supports/sustains the student’s
argument. Do not confuse “critical analysis” with “plot summary.” The goal is to develop,
sustain, and advance a thesis based on a critique of the primary text which is supported in part by
at least 3 scholarly articles from the Troy Library databases.
You are expected to address one of the major themes raised in this story, write about the
evolution of the protagonist's character (his strengths and weaknesses, his personality, motives
etc), analyze how figurative language contributes to the development of a theme, an issue, or an
argument presented in a short story. Alternatively, you can analyze the protagonist's epiphany,
and show how it relates to you as an individual/person/writer, your personal values, beliefs, and
convictions. The choice to an approach to a literary analysis is yours.
Make sure that you use literary terms (the protagonist, the plot, the antagonist, the conflict, the
climax, the epiphany, a dynamic/static character, a point of view, the setting, the tone, etc.)
throughout your literary analysis essay.
It is crucial that you both quote and cite from a short story as well as from your scholarly
articles to support your thesis and ideas in your essay. Each quote that you use should be short,
vivid, telling, and it should be correctly integrated within your essay following the rules of
proper punctuation and mechanics. Use your Backpack Literature, The MLA Handbook, The
MLA handout, or The Writer’s Reference for the MLA format rules.
Dr. Slobodchikoff, ENG 1102 MWF, Fall 2018
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What you’ll be graded upon:
15%
Introduction: You establish a context for the significance of your thesis in regards to the
literary work as a whole. How does your argument contribute to understanding the
author’s major literary/thematic concerns? What can other readers learn from your
analysis?
15%
Thesis: You state your main point (or argument) in one sentence. Your thesis should be
clear, concise, and arguable. The thesis is the culmination of your introduction.
30%
Organization. Your essay should follow that of a typical literary critique: Since your
focus must be on analyzing some literary motif, theme, or a combination of literary
elements (such as symbolism, character, setting, etc.), your essay must contain wellstructured supporting paragraphs that contain a topic sentence, quotes from the primary
text, an explanation/discussion of the significance of the quotes you use in relation to
your thesis, and a concluding sentence or two that situates the entire paragraph in relation
to the thesis. Your thesis will focus on a critical analysis of the primary text, so your
supporting paragraphs should be organized around each of the quotes you use, explaining
the significance of the quotes and why (or how) they illustrate your main point, but you
also need to make sure that your paragraphs contain strong transitions and at least six (or
more) sentences. Your thesis should be supported by quotes and citations from your
secondary sources that is your scholarly articles.
10%
Conclusion: Regardless of the argument you make, you want a conclusion that avoids
summarizing what you’ve just said, and please avoid writing, “In conclusion.…” Your
aim in a conclusion is to place the discussion in a larger context. For example, how might
your critical analysis of a literary character relate to the other characters in a work? How
might your thesis be applied to other aspects of the text, say for example, setting or
symbolism?
15%
Grammar and mechanics: Your paper avoids basic grammar mistakes, such as dropped
apostrophes in possessives, subject/verb disagreement, arbitrary tense switches, etc. The
paper demonstrates a commitment to proofreading by avoiding easy-to-catch typos and
word mistakes (effect for affect, for example). The paper adheres to MLA formatting
style for in-text citations.
15%
Presentation: Your paper meets the minimum length criteria of 750 words, is typed with a
title and your name on it. Your paper should follow the MLA Format. Type your essay
using Times New Roman 12- point font. Double-space your essay, and leave 1inch
margins on all sides. Number all of your pages in the upper-right corner with your last
name and a page number. Your essay should include a Works Cited page with the
references of the works and scholarly articles that you cited in your essay. Please, see
your MLA Handbook (8th edition), textbook, and Writer’s Reference for the rules and
details of the MLA style.
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