First Assignment Paper Topics!

Please be sure to bring your thesis statement and your passage to class on Friday, February 23rd.

Due in section on Friday, March 2^nd

Answers must be:

§ 750-1200 words excluding quotations (about 3-5 pages)

§ Typed in 12pt, double-spaced, Times New Roman font, and in paragraph form.

§ No generalizations in the first paragraph (as in, “The novel was a literary work that had an enormous impact on people.”)

Choose one of the following topics for your essay. You will not need to answer all the questions posed in the topics; they are there to help you think about the topic as a whole. You will need to take an argumentative stance and examine one passage (no more, no less) as supporting evidence for your view:

1. Develop an argument discussing the relationship between the narrator and the story or narrative that he/she/they are trying to convey in a specific passage. Do not address the role of the narrator(s) in the entire text (or in multiple texts). What literary forms or devices do they use to effectively convey their message? Do they follow what they “preach”? Why or why not? Are they reliable, and how does their (un)reliability effectively convey the author’s intended (or possibly unintended) message(s)? In general, what is the purpose of this narrator?
2. Discuss one minor character and his/her impact on the concept of family, home, security, gender difference, or reality in the text as a whole. You will only need to address one of the topics, but you will need to address it thoroughly.
3. Choose an element or object within the text and discuss its relationship to one character and the movement of modernism. How does this element or object exemplify modernism or criticize modernism and the modern American culture? You’ll want to first define modernism based on Prof. Schaub’s lectures then discuss the object or element.
4. Discuss and define happiness according to a specific passage in one of the texts. What does it mean to be happy? How does happiness function with respects to the character(s) and/or their definitions of family, society, or culture? Does happiness have room for the social, or is it an individual experience? Why?

Please keep in mind the following when writing this essay:

• What is my argument? What am I arguing for? What am I arguing against?]
• Does my close reading support my argument? Do I provide textual justifications for my argument?
• Is my argument convincing and logical? Would I be able to convince my TA, my professor, and a room of my peers of its validity?
• Did I write a second draft? First drafts are great for formulating ideas and experimenting with arguments. Second drafts are even better because they can refashion ideas into a more cohesive and polished product.

If you would like to discuss your paper with me, please feel free to see me during my office hours (T 11-1pm) or by appointment via eyu@wisc.edu.