English 271 Critical Essay Assignment

 

30 pts. possible, (30% of semester grade)

 

Due date:  Thurs. Nov. 30, no later than 5pm. (Early turn-ins are welcome!)

 

 

Instructions, Audience, and Purpose

 

Write a 5-8 page literary analysis, applying your choice of critical lens to any literary work. Imagine you are writing this essay for an undergraduate and graduate-level casebook (critical anthology) on the work in question, OR for a contemporary literary journal which features articles on contemporary fiction and poetry.

 

Note: Strict New Critical or Formalist approaches are no longer in wide use at the higher levels of academia, though you may occasionally encounter instructors who prefer such approaches to newer ones. If you plan to go on to graduate studies, you might keep this in mind.

 

Your purpose is to illuminate the work in question, help a college-level reader get more out it, and convince such a reader that your analysis of the work in question is valid.  The purpose of the assignment itself is to give you practice applying at least one of the critical lenses we’ve worked with this semester.

 

Be sure to:

 

  1. Include a title which identifies the critical approach you are taking.
  2. Review carefully the relevant chapter in Tyson.
  3. Review carefully any applicable class notes and materials.
  4. Provide a clear central point.
  5. Develop your argument fully, with focused paragraphs and good supporting evidence (reasons, examples, details, quotations, paraphrases) for your claims.
  6. Acknowledge and refute counter-views.
  7. Keep your audience clearly in mind.
  8. Document any sources using MLA format.
  9. Format your manuscript according to MLA guidelines.
  10. Carefully edit and proofread your work for lapses in clarity, stylistic problems, and mechanical errors.
  11. Include your conference draft with the final product, and staple all hardcopy materials.

 

Note: you must look up at least 3 model essays which apply the type of criticism you are using, and write up an abstract/bibliographical annotation for each. Attach these absracts to your final essay.


Evaluation Criteria

 

To receive credit for your essay, you must complete 1 peer critique, and 1 possible scheduled student-teacher conference. Your essay should be focused, organized, and well-developed, with clear, explicit, accurate application of the critical theory in question. Any sources must be documented properly and your essay manuscript formatted according to MLA guidelines. Essays must be received in my hands, my SE 318 (English Annex) mailbox, or on my office desk no later than 5pm, Thurs., Nov. 30.  Material turned in after this time will not be accepted (with the exception of a documented medical or family emergency requiring a semester grade of Incomplete.)

 

Grading scale:

 

27-30 = A

23-26 = B

19-22 = C

15-18 = D

Below 15 = F

 

 

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