Read the poem – “Indian Cartography” by Deborah Miranda which is posed below as a PDF document and write an essay following the instructions:
Essay One Main Task
Write a 1,000-1,200-word essay answering the following question: What truth about community — or the individual’s relationship to community — does the text represent? Interpret the text to identify what it says about communities in general. In other words, what does the fictional text teach us about our own communities in the real world?
What truth about community — or the individual’s relationship to community — does the text represent? In other words — What implied “statement” does the story make about community, or the individual’s relationship to community? What is the meaning of the story or poem? The story or poem you choose won’t convey its meaning directly, but it will imply a meaning through its language, imagery, symbolism, characterization, plot, etc. You will need to interpret the story or poem in order to figure out what you think its meaning is.
Because this prompt is broad, I’m providing you with focus questions. Your essay can address the broad question in the “main task” box above or any one of the more narrowly focused ones below.
What does the story say about…
What causes conflict within communities?
Why do communities oppress or exclude certain individuals or groups, and what are the effects of oppression/exclusion?
What is the role of empathy in a community? What factors produce or deplete it? What are the effects of its presence or absence?
What causes individuals to conform to — or rebel against — the norms and values in their communities?
What sorts of tensions and conflicts emerge within the most foundational, intimate community most of us experience — the family? Where do these tensions and conflicts come from?
What challenges and transformations emerge as individuals and communities adapt to new cultural environments?
What phenomena/conditions/ideologies/values lead to the corruption of large-scale communities (e.g., societies)?
How do modern communities and societies define progress? What are the benefits of progress thus defined? Are there ever any unintended consequences of what seems like progress?
What is the role of authority in a community? In what ways can authority become misguided or malevolent? What are the characteristics of “good” authority?
What causes individuals to feel alienated from their own communities or dissatisfied with their roles within them?
How do individuals cope with the experience of alienation, exclusion, or oppression?
What do individuals and communities need to overcome in order to develop more healthy and harmonious communities?
What does a particular text reveal about the state of community or society during the time and in the place it was written?
*Keep in mind that this essay is not asking for your own personal opinion related to these questions. Instead, you’re figuring out how the story or poem answers one of these questions.
Essay One Structure
Introduction (1 paragraph): Introduce the text. First provide context and background information about the story/poem. Then summarize the text, emphasizing the aspects of the text relevant to your interpretation. The purpose of an introduction is to engage the reader’s interest and prepare them for the thesis statement. Here are a few things you can do to accomplish these goals:
Engage your reader’s interest by explaining why the theme you’re exploring (community or a related topic) is an important one for the reader to be thinking about, and how the text you’re interpreting provides a unique and important perspective on this theme.
Define the key terms you’re working with. For example, if your essay addresses what a story/poem communicates about alienation, explain what you mean by “alienation.”
Prepare the reader for your thesis by introducing the text you’re interpreting. Who wrote it and when was it written? What, generally, is it about?
Thesis statement (1 sentence at the end of the introduction paragraph): Make a claim about the meaning of the text. What “general truth” about community is implied by the text?
Proof (2-3 paragraph): Prove your interpretive claim. Present evidence from the text, including direct quotations. Closely analyze the textual evidence in order to show the reader why it supports the interpretive claim in your thesis statement. The thesis should be a 1-2 sentence arguable statement, an assertion about the meaning of the story or poem you’re interpreting.
The thesis should answer this question: What general claim does the story make about community or a related topic?
The thesis should come at the end of the introduction. (A thesis statement typically doesn’t appear in a stand-alone paragraph.)
In addition to making a claim, the thesis should also preview your evidence, briefly outlining the elements of the story/poem you’ll focus on to prove your claim.
The thesis should prepare the reader for what’s to come in the rest of the essay.
Proof Paragraphs: The proof section (or body) of your essay is where you prove to the reader that your thesis statement is valid. Use MLA CITATION to quote the passage you are writing about.
In an essay of this length, the proof section should consist of at least three well-developed paragraphs.
Each proof paragraph should examine a single aspect of the text that supports your overall interpretation, similar to what the sample essay does. Here’s an example of what a rough outline of an essay’s proof paragraphs would look like. Take note of how each proof paragraph focuses on one aspect of the story that relates to the thesis.
Thesis:
First Proof Paragraph:
Second Proof Paragraph:
Third Proof Paragraph:
**P.I.E. (POINT, INFORMATION, EXPLANATION) STRUCTURE WILL BE VERY USEFUL FOR YOUR PROOF PARAGRAPHS IN THIS ESSAY.**
Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that supports the thesis and makes an interpretive claim about a specific aspect of the text (POINT).
Following the topic sentence, provide evidence for its claim—paraphrase, summary, or quotations from the text that prove your point (INFORMATION).
Each paragraph should then conclude with interpretation of your evidence, explaining why and how it proves your point (EXPLANATION).
Counterargument & Refutation (1 paragraph): Describe a reasonable or common interpretation of the text that contradicts your own (counterargument). Then explain why this other interpretation is unfounded or less compelling than your own (refutation).
Conclusion (1 paragraph): Restate your position and address the broader implications of your interpretation. The counterargument/refutation paragraph introduces a position that contradicts your own, then argues against this position, further validating your own claim.
The counterargument/refutation is usually a single paragraph after the proof section of the essay.
Start by introducing another reasonable interpretation of the text, an interpretation that contradicts your own. This can be an interpretation you’ve read, one you’ve heard in class, or simply another reasonable interpretation you can imagine someone else having. This first half of the paragraph is your counterargument.
Next, refute the counterargument, demonstrating that this other interpretation is less valid than your own.
Use evidence from the text to persuade the reader that the counterargument is not as valid as your own interpretation.
Refutation is a key feature of persuasive writing, communicating to your reader that you’ve considered alternatives and arrived at the best possible conclusion.
Organizing Essay One: Conclusion Paragraph
The conclusion should restate your position and address the wider implications of your interpretation.
The reader should leave your essay with a sense that what they’ve read is important, and one way to accomplish that is to draw some connection between the text, the issues it raises, and our present moment.
Some questions you might answer in your conclusion:
Does this text somehow shed light on our current political, social, or cultural situation?
Does it imply a solution to some of the problems we face?
What might happen if our culture really absorbed the meaning the writer is trying to get across?
Are the ideas or assumptions conveyed by the text in need of some sort of critique or correction?
Don’t Just Describe: Interpret
In your essay, don’t just summarize or describe the text—INTERPRET it. The most common mistake students make when they’re starting out with literary interpretation is to provide only detailed summaries or descriptions of the text. Summary and description are important as evidence, but your ultimate goal is to figure out what claims are embedded in the text about the world beyond itself. Figure what general truth about our own human, social experience is represented by the specific the text you’ve chosen.
To get a more concrete sense of the difference between interpretation and description, take a look at the two thesis statements below, which both respond to the same focus question: “Why do communities oppress or exclude certain individuals?”
A “descriptive” thesis (avoid): In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the villagers reveal that they are willing to sacrifice the rights and lives of individuals in order to uphold their communal traditions and protect the well-being of their community. Moreover, they are willing to offer themselves up for this sacrifice, such is the extent of their investment in their community.
An analytical, interpretive thesis: Through its depiction of a stoning ritual, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” reveals the way in which societies require a designated outsider in order to maintain group cohesion. Jackson’s parable suggests that communities exclude, or, in extreme cases, exterminate some segment of the population in order to achieve a false sense of unity.
Notice how the first one, while being well-written, stays in the realm of telling the reader what happens in the story. The second one, however, moves beyond the events of the story to make a claim about its meaning, what it says about real-world social dynamics. This same sort of reasoning should appear in not just your thesis statement, but also in each proof paragraph.
Essay One Goals/Grading Rubric
Below is a list of things you should try to accomplish in Essay One. You’ll be provided with more information about how to accomplish these goals later in the unit. These are also the criteria I’ll be using in the grading rubric for the essay.
Effective interpretation (critical thinking). Using interpretation/inductive reasoning, the essay links a close examination of the specifics of the text with the text’s message or meaning. The essay contains a rich explanation of what idea or truth the text represents.
Persuasive evidence. The proof paragraphs persuasively support the interpretive claim in the thesis through close analysis of the text. The writer interprets quotations or other forms of concrete textual evidence in each proof paragraph to support the thesis statement. In the essay, all claims about the meaning of the text clearly emerge from the text itself.
Essay unity. Each part of the essay clearly relates to the thesis statement. There are no aspects of the essay that seem irrelevant or unrelated to the central claim in the thesis or the essay’s purpose, which is to prove the thesis.
An introduction paragraph that adequately prepares the reader for the rest of the essay by contextualizing and summarizing the text, establishing the theme being explored, and defining key terms.
A thesis statement that is arguable and focused, answering the central question of the essay prompt and previewing the rest of the essay. The thesis makes an interpretive claim, describing what the text says about the theme.
Supporting proof paragraphs that are focused and fully developed, using PIE structure. Each proof paragraph begins with a topic sentence that supports the thesis and makes an assertion about the text (POINT). Each proof paragraph then provides evidence from the text supporting the claim in the topic sentence (INFORMATION). Each proof paragraph then concludes with interpretation, explaining why and how the evidence proves the claim (EXPLANATION).
A counterargument-refutation paragraph that introduces another plausible interpretation of the text and demonstrates how this interpretation is less valid than the writer’s own.
A conclusion paragraph that restates key elements of the interpretation and addresses its broader implications. (e.g., How could the meaning of the text be applied to a better understanding of contemporary or historical issues?)
Effective use of quotations and citations. All quotations are accurate representations of the original text, germane to the writer’s interpretation, and properly integrated into the writer’s sentences. There are no stand-alone quotations; quotations are appropriately introduced and explained. MLA-style in-text citations are used correctly.
Language that is clear, grammatically correct, and appropriate to academic discourse.
