your job is to compare and contrast how two of the short stories that we have read represent issues of microaggressions and what the stories seem to say about the issue of racism or sexism in a deeper sense. Your goal is not simply to show how they are similar or different from each other but to take a position on whether their approach is beneficial or whether it distracts from the issues they depict. Do the stories, for example, clarify some aspect of the issue of microaggressions either showing why they are important or why they distraction from deeper racial issues? Or do the stories misrepresent microaggressions pushing a misleading political agenda? Are both stories equally effective/ineffective, or does one story do a better job of giving insight into the issue while the other just muddies the waters?
Story Pairings
PIck TWO of the following stories to compare and contrast in your essay:
“The Politics of the Quotidian,” by Caille Millner.
“Omakase,” by Weike Wang.
“Boys Go to Jupiter,” by Danielle Evans.
“Control Negro,” by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson,
Goals
The goals of this assignment are:
To give you practice in looking at how stories deal with social issues.
To re-enforce your knowledge of close-reading and observation.
To build your researching skills in the context of literature.
Remember that your goal is not just to point out similarities and differences about the short stories but to make an argument for whether the way the stories present microaggression is insightful or misleading. So don’t simply point out superficial aspects of the stories like “they both have female protagonists,” but focus on things that are relevant to the issue at hand: “While Story 1 shows how it is difficult to disentangle racism from sexism, Story 2 shows how we can take part in racism even when we do not have the intent to uphold racist ideas.”
Further Guidelines
When you write your essay, be sure the final draft includes the following:
Introduction: An introduction that sets the stage for the essay.
Thesis: A thesis should have an insightful point to make about how the stories treat microaggressions or racism. Ideally you essay should point something out that the average reader doesn’t get from a first reading of the stories.
Your Audience: Think of your reader as someone else who has already read the stories but hasn’t given them much thought. Your goal is to show them something that they wouldn’t have already noticed on such an initial reading.
Insightful Points: An essay that is clearly organized and that does more than just make a series of unrelated points. An “A” essay will allow the reader to have a deeper understanding of the stories or some aspect of the stories having to do with how they represent microaggressions.
Topic focused paragraphs: Your topic sentences and transitions should clearly identify the main point of individual paragraphs. Your body paragraphs should not consist of two long paragraphs, one about one story and the other about the other story. You must identify individual points about the stories that you are analyzing. (Don’t write: “There are microaggressions in the first story.” Write something like: “Although this story also shows how microaggressions work, in this story it is often hard to tell if the microaggressions are due to race or due to gender. The author seems to want to point out that these two aspects work together in microaggressions and that trying to parse out how much is due to one versus the other is a fool’s errand.”)
Analyze don’t summarize: Assume you are writing to someone who has read the story but not thought too much about it. You don’t need to retell the story, you just need to focus in on the details that are most pertinent to your analysis as evidence for the points you are making.
Support: Support for your points in the form of clear and specific evidence from the work you are using. This means you will use quotes effectively following MLA conventions.
Include a Works Cited list that includes the short stories and, should you decide to include secondary sources in your analysis, the secondary sources you use. (This is not required nor recommended. The stories themselves and what I placed in the modules should be enough.)
Grading Criteria: Your essay will be graded according to its insight, clarity, logic, and attention to detail.
Length:1500 to 1800 words.
