English 271 Critical Essay Assignment
(25 pts. or 25% of final grade)

1st Draft Due: Dec. 1

2nd Draft Due: at time of your scheduled conference

Final Version Due: Dec. 10. Include 2nd draft with instructor comments and peer critiques. STAPLE ALL MATERIALS.

Instructions, Audience, and Purpose

 

Write a 4-6 page literary analysis of Fight Club, applying your choice of any critical lens we've studied this semester. Imagine you are writing this essay for an undergraduate casebook (critical anthology) on the novel.

 

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.

 

You will need to:

 

  1. Include a title which identifies the critical approach you are taking.
  2. Research and briefly acknowledge/summarize what other critics have said about the same work.
  3. Provide a clear central point.
  4. Develop your argument fully, with focused paragraphs and good supporting evidence (reasons, examples, details, quotations, paraphrases) for your claims.
  5. Acknowledge and refute counter-views.
  6. Keep your audience clearly in mind.
  7. Write engagingly, with imagination and insight.
  8. Document any sources using MLA format.
  9. Format your manuscript according to MLA guidelines.
  10. Avoid all types of plagiarism. (See our Power Point document in Blackboard on this subject.)
  11. Carefully edit and proofread your work for lapses in clarity, stylistic problems, and mechanical errors.
  12. Include any drafts with instructor comments, and staple all hardcopy materials.

 

Suggestions

 

  1. An easy way to come up with a topic and approach is to review Tyson's listing of questions typically asked for each kind of criticism. You can simply ask one of those representative questions about the text, and your answer to the question becomes your thesis statement.
    For example, on p. 38, item #7, Tyson says that some of the questions a Lacanian Psychoanalytic theorist might ask are, "In what ways does the text seem to reveal characters' emotional investments in the Symbolic Order, the Imaginary Order, the Mirror Stage, or what Lacan calls objet petit a? Does any part of the text seem to represent Lacan's notion of the Real?" For your own essay, you would simply apply one or more of these questions to the novel. Your essay's introduction then might pose such a question as: "What is the narrator's relationship to the Symbolic Order and objet petit a? In what specific ways is he invested in both, and to what end?"
  2. Also helpful would be to research essays which others have written about your particular topic or idea. Your own essay can react and respond to these other pieces, either using them to help support your thesis, or to provide positions you'd like to argue against. Either way, they can add complexity, scope, and interest to your essay.


Evaluation Criteria

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. For formatting review, CLICK HERE.

I first assign a grade to your essay where:

A = Outstanding; meets all criteria well. May show an imperfection in one or two areas, but is overall noticeably "above the pack." Evidence of insight and imagination.

B = Very good; meets all or virtually all criteria quite well. May show several weaknesses, but these are balanced by noticeable competence in all or nearly all others facets of the assignment. Doesn't especially stand out as exceptional, but is a good paper.

C = Fair; meets some of the criteria reasonably well but others poorly, or meets all of the criteria, but rather weakly in all cases.

D = Poor; meets few of the criteria, but is redeemed by at least minimal attention to one or two facets facets of the assignment.

F = Unacceptable; fails to meet all or or virtually all criteria; may be plagiarized.

I then fine-tune that grade with points:

 

A = 22.25-25

B = 19.25-22

C = 16.25-19

D = 13.25-16

F =  13 or less

 


Late Drafts

I'll accept late drafts for feedback, provided there is time for you to use my feedback before you hand in the final version.


Late Final Versions

No final versions will be accepted after the hand-in date, except with documented evidence of serious hardship or illness. (See online schedule for due date.)

 

Turning in Your Essay

If you'd like your graded essay returned (with your semester grade tallied), include with your essay a self-addressed and self-stamped manilla envelope. After scoring and grading your work, I'll simply send it to the address you've provided.

Essays turned in WITHOUT a self-addressed and self-stamped envelope will be used to make a bonfire in the hallway for a weenie-roast.

Put your essay in my Minard or SE English Annex mailbox, or in the labeled box on floor just outside of the annex, or on my desk, or under my office door.

No coursework accepted after midnight on the hand-in date, except with documented evidence of severe hardship. I can't guarrantee that the SE outer doors will be unlocked after 5 pm.

 

 

 

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