Craft a 6 page paper that combines contextual research and literary analysis to argue for ways in which reading literature can help individuals act more ethically and create more just and equitable communities and then outline a possible plan for your group’s Reading Together Project that seeks to test out your argument.
A major aim of this assignment is to prepare you to collaboratively lead a reading community with the other members of your reading group by having you develop some well informed ideas about how such a reading community might advance social justice.
The three components of the paper (in the order that I think is most likely to be effective):
A thesis that makes a claim about how reading/discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing (or, if you prefer, why it it is unlikely to accomplish that), and a discussion that synthesizes ideas and information from at least 4 credible, relevant secondary sources (3 of which must be scholarly) to suggest that your thesis is reasonable and well informed. You can use any of the secondary sources that we’ve discussed in class as well as the source that you wrote about in the related minor assignment. all sources to be use have been attached in files
A section in which you close read the jungle by upton sinclair to illustrate how it might be used to realize your claims about how discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing. Show how specific features of the text could be discussed or understood in ways that might change the minds and actions of reading community members.
A proposal in which you outline how your group could organize and lead a reading community that strives to include people who are not in our class and meets at least four times to discuss one or two of our course texts. You should identify how your Reading Group will invite people to join its reading community, what text(s) you’ll focus on, where and when you might meet, and how you will attempt to apply the ideas and research discussed earlier in the paper to organizing and leading your reading community. .
Essential Goals:
The essay offers a plausible thesis that makes a claim about how reading/discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing.
The essay contains a discussion that synthesizes ideas and information from at least 4 credible, relevant secondary sources to support and expand on the ideas in your thesis.
Three of those sources are scholarly, meaning they are written by an expert, published in a scholarly venue, and peer-reviewed or have undergone a similarly rigorous process to ensure originality, accuracy, and quality.
The essay close reads one of our course texts to illustrate how it might be used to realize your thesis’s claims about how discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing.
The essay offers a proposal in which you outline how your Reading Group could organize and lead a reading community that strives to include people who are not in our class and meets at least four times to discuss one or two of our course texts and this proposal is clearly informed and inspired by the thesis, research, and close reading offered in the rest of the essay.
The essay uses the MLA citation style to cite the analyzed text and includes an MLA style Works Cited (see this siteLinks to an external site. and this site for more info; ask me questions if further clarity is needed).
The essay is 6-8 pages long.
The essay’s language is generally clear and free of grammatical errors. Its organization does not noticeably hamper readers’ understanding.
Advanced Goals:
The essay’s combination of thesis, claims, reasons, and evidence presents a compelling, persuasive, thorough argument (one that is likely to sway readers and makes counterarguments difficult) about how reading/discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing. The essay’s argument makes clear how specific kinds of reading/analysis/discussion of literary texts can lead to specific outcomes related to social justice and flourishing.
The essay’s proposal section describes specific actions that the group could take to lead and organize a successful reading community and shows how those actions are informed by the essay’s argument and research by drawing clear connections to the claims and sources offered in other parts of the essay. The essay’s proposal offers concrete details to describe how the reading community will be led and organized.
The essay’s proposed reading community seems likely to achieve its goals, based on your proposal.
The essay’s discussion of secondary sources conveys the author’s detailed knowledge of each source and relies more on quotation than paraphrase.
The essay shows clearly how its thesis is informed by the ideas and information in its secondary sources and also effectively distinguishes and foregrounds its own claims about how reading/discussing literature in community might promote justice and flourishing.
The essay’s close reading of a course text is thorough and persuasive. It offers robust analysis of well-chosen textual evidence and that analysis shows persuasively how specific features of the text could be discussed or understood in ways that might change the minds and actions of reading community members.
The sequencing of the essay’s paragraphs demonstrates the author’s understanding how their claims build on each other. Later claims follow logically from early claims.
The essay’s language flows in ways that make comprehension easy. It is unlikely that a skilled reader would need to reread get the gist of your meaning or would be “bumped” out of their reading process.
