Write and organize a complete essay, including an introduction, a thesis, at least three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
Construct a thesis from your close readings and observations of your chosen passages, including analyzing one or multiple literary features/devices (such as point of view, etc.) that you develop throughout the essay.
Engage closely with your chosen short story by including and analyzing at least 1-2 direct quotations (and possibly more) in each body paragraph. Your thesis should arise from your observations and analysis of these textual details and direct quotations.
WRITE ABOUT THE STORY BELOW:
“Diary of a Madman” –Lu Xun (short story)
Prompt:
Follow the close reading handout and identify at least three-four passages that you believe have a relationship to each other in your observations of your chosen short story. It is okay and, in fact, good if putting these passages together requires you to reconcile contradictions across the passages. Based on your close observations of these passages, make an argument about how these passages are connected in the short story. You will want to focus on how one or more literary devices–such as tone, use of repetition or juxtaposition, symbolism, or point of view– contribute to your chosen story’s overall meaning. Your essay should analyze both content and form of your chosen short story.
Note: This semester, we are working toward the staircase model of building an argument in academic writing (see Writing the College Humanities paper handout). I’d like to see that you are making an honest attempt at developing a staircase model of an argument in your essay.
****ITS IMPORTANT YOU DO A STAIRCASE MODEL FOR THE ESSAY”(- The “Staircase.” I prefer to think of a paper as a staircase (see below). When we read your title
and your opening lines, we’re at the foot of the stairs: we can see what’s up there, and we know why
we want to get there. In non-metaphorical terms: your Intro puts a problem in play, and by the time
we get to your thesis statement, we have a direction for a solution. Your body paragraphs proceed as
a series of rising steps, making claims that build upon one another, until we reach the answer. At the
end of the paper, look out from your new height: what can you see about the text now that you
couldn’t see at the beginning
