Long Essay Assignment
Write an essay based on the instructions below. The essay should be about seven full pages in length. Essays that are shorter than six full pages or longer than nine pages might be returned unread or with a failing grade. The page count does not include the Works Cited page. The essay is due on March 20th. See the course outline for lateness penalties.
All essays must be submitted to Turnitin.com and also submitted (in hard copy) to the instructor. No essay will be graded until it has been submitted to the web site and the instructor.
All essays must also be accompanied by the Essay Submission Checklist. Please attach the checklist sheet as the final page of your essay (after the Works Cited page).
As always, plagiarism will not be tolerated. Document all sources (of ideas and of quotations), including all web sources (whether an author is identifiable or not).
Essays should conform to MLA guidelines in both appearance and citation style. Essays should have double-spaced lineation. Printed essays should use a 12-point, serif font and should not have a justified right margin. Please use one-inch margins on all sides. Please do not submit the essay in a binder or folder. I am not fond of title pages. Please include URLs, as appropriate, in your list of Works Cited (because I do no like the MLA’s new recommendation about not needing to include the URLs).
Choose one of the following ten course texts and write an argumentative essay about it. Your essay must be formulated as a response to
a published critical essay about the same text. The essay you choose to respond to must be an academic essay published in a peer-reviewed
journal or book. The essay must have been published no earlier than 1950. The essay must present a critical interpretation of the text
(rather than, say, an account of a biographic or bibliographic detail). You are invited to search for appropriate essays using the
MLA International Bibliography. You are welcome to
respond to an essay that is about two texts, such as one about Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and his “The Two Voices”: while you are still responding
to the essay as a whole, you can focus your attention on what is said about “Ulysses.”
Your goal in the essay is to enter into a critical conversation about the text you are studying. Your thesis statement must be expressed
as a response to the essay and contain your own interpretation. For example, if you are studying Joyce’s “The Dead” and found a good essay
by Stuffy Scholar about the story, your thesis will be expressed in the following manner:
While Stuffy Scholar interprets the military imagery of the dinner party as a reflection of Gabriel embracing the troubled
identity of Ireland, this essay argues [or, I argue] that the military imagery is being rejected by both Gabriel and Miss Ivors.
The second paragraph of your essay must be a summary of the essay to which you are responding. Do not assume your reader has also read the
essay (but do assume your reader has read the course text). At least two more paragraphs must constitute an analysis and response to the
critical essay: you may pursue your response for the full balance of your essay, or you may leave the critical essay behind and embark on
your own interpretation (that builds off the critical essay’s interpretation). Your essay must convey that you have understood the course
text, that you have understood the critical essay, and that you are able to place your own interpretation of the course text alongside an
established scholar’s interpretation (with an appropriate argument and support for that argument).
- Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
- Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’”
- Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
- Greene, The End of the Affair
- Joyce, “The Dead”
- Mansfield, “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”
- Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
- Tennyson, “Ulysses”
- Yeats, “Among School Children”
- Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”