Instructions
For your first short practice essay, you will compose a short (3-5 page) paper which defends the claim that either a) The Great Gatsby is deserving of a place in the American literary canon or b) The Great Gatsby is no longer relevant to the American literary canon. Your paper will use evidence from the novel as well as referring to at least one of the essays in the folder Responses to Gatsby
Your paper should include:
An introductory paragraph where you clearly state your argument and outline the 2-3 main reasons you will use to defend your position.
Multiple body paragraphs where you develop your reasons for your position. Each paragraph should have a clear purpose outlined in the topic sentence and the rest of the paragraph should develop the smaller point. A good rule is that a paragraph shouldn’t be more than half a page long – beyond that you probably have two smaller ideas that could be split off into two separate paragraphs. You may need more than one paragraph to develop each of your reasons that you think Gatsby is or is not still deserving of its place in the canon.
A clear concluding paragraph which brings closure to your ideas and also discusses the broader importance of your claims – how does your argument relate to bigger conversations about the literary canon?
References to The Great Gatsby and at least one of the assigned supplementary essays.
The focus of this paper is on your argument about the novel and its relationship to the literary canon – while I encourage you to use the assigned sources as evidence, the focus should be on your argument. Make sure that your argument is clear – I encourage use of the first-person “I” if it helps you more clearly state your case.
References to the novel and essays should be correctly cited in the text using MLA citation style – you should cite both quotes and paraphrase/summary of their ideas. You should use parenthetical citations which include page numbers (or refer to the chapter in the book since our e-book doesn’t show pages). In addition, quotes should always be introduced with a clear signal phrase (The author writes/Wells argues/etc). Since you are only citing sources provided by me, you do not need to provide a works cited page. For more on MLA citation style, see the Purdue Owl site.
Your essay should be formatted as follows: 12 point, Times New Roman, double spaced with one inch margins. Your name, the date, the course name and a title should appear on the first page. You do not need a separate title page.
Presenting someone else’s ideas as your own is plagiarism and will result in an automatic zero on this assignment. If you are nervous about writing or this paper, please make use of the resources linked on the D2L page and reach out to me if you would like to schedule a video conference.
