Hello, this is an English 2 analytical essay on the short story “Young Goodman Brown” Below I will provide an instructional handout, as well as PDF of the story. I am going to copy and paste verbatim the instructions into here, although the formatting isnt great so! I am also providing a word document with those same instructions.
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“Young Goodman Brown” Essay
Now that you understand the basic 3 step pattern of writing a literary essay (claim, quote, analysis), it’s time to take the training wheels off. You’ve probably noticed that the first couple of essays look and sound overly formulaic and repetitive in their structure. You may have even felt micromanaged and limited in your writing. That was intentional to help you first understand how to organize and develop your thoughts. This time, I want you to take what you’ve learned and write an essay that has a more natural flow.
Just create a discussion in your essay and integrate quotes with your sentences like you’ve been doing all semester, but don’t be overly rigid with the claim, quote analysis pattern like the first couple of essays. You still need to follow the thesis statement, topic statement, quote integration rules. But YOU get to decide how many paragraphs you need to cover the topic discussion points below (you must cover all of them). A couple discussion points might be combined into a single paragraph because they work together. You get to decide the organization, and you are responsible for developing your own analysis on the topics without the benefit of a lecture on the story from me. Read the story very closely because your understanding of the story is crucial to getting your analysis correct. Also, this is still a formal literary essay, so continue to adhere to rules I provided on previous essay instruction like: you can’t use first or second person, don’t use words like “for example”, etc.
A big part of my evaluation will be based on how well you understand the story and your ability to craft your own essay (on the discussion points below) in an organized manner that makes sense. I will also be looking at how thorough your analysis is and the strength of your support quotes. Other considerations like grammar and format will also be part of your grade, as always.
This is not a research paper. All of your support quotes must come from the story, just like the previous essays – no outside research. A Works Cited page, integrated quotes, and parenthetical citations are required, as well.
Read the story “Young Goodman Brown”.
Craft clear topic statements
Provide strong support with integrated quotes.
Your essay must be at least 2 ½ pages long but no longer than 5 pages.
Follow the format sample I have provided for previous essays.
YOUR ESSAY WILL COVER THE FOLLOWING:
*Write an introduction paragraph and end with a thesis statement that functions for all the discussion topics.
*How does setting and symbolism contribute to the meaning of the story?
*Discuss the belief system Young Goodman Brown had. Was it stable?
*Was young Goodman Brown’s loss of faith in his wife/teachers/religion justified?
*Discuss the moral and religious hypocrisy in the story.
*What lesson can contemporary society take from this story?
Do not include the questions in your assignment. This is a traditional essay, not a journal or Q&A. The topic statements will inform me what discussion points you are covering in each paragraph.
