Essay 1: (also found on Canvas)

General Type of assignment: Explain the meaning of a poem or story.

New skills required:  Analyze details in a poem or story to draw a conclusion about its meaning.

Specific Prompt

Choose one poem or one short story from our Family Dysfunction unit. Write an essay in which you analyze the characterization of family members to draw a conclusion about a thematic statement made about the relationship portrayed.

To make the easiest and fullest analysis, you will want to use appropriate literary device terms in your claims, as they relate to each piece and genre.

Worth: 200 points (out of 1000 total class points, which is 20% of total class grade)

Due Dates:

• October 26, 2015, by 2pm: Bring Introduction and Body Paragraph 1 to class, TYPED
• October 28, 2015 November 2, 2015, by 2pm: type out and hand in hard copy of revised Essay 1 for grade

Rhetorical Considerations:

·       Your thesis statement should answer, in some way, the question: What is the speaker/narrator’s thematic view of a specific family relationship, as presented in the piece? Support your analytical claims by citing passages from the text and putting those passages in context of your analytical argument (thesis and topic sentence claims).

·       Remember: You have an academic audience. Therefore, you need to supply good contextual details to set up and then support solid reasoning. Your job is to demonstrate a deeper, more universal understanding of the poem or short story.

Paper Format Requirements:

• Creative, Informative Title
• 5-body paragraph structure, with at least five paragraphs:  Intro | body paragraphs | conclusion
• Bold your thesis statement in each draft
• Format: 12-point font (Times New Roman or Cambria); one-inch margins; standard double-spaced 
• Use MLA guidelines for citing your primary source – the subject of your essay (story or poem)
• Include a Work Cited page at the end, which does not count towards page count.
• At minimum: your essay must be at least two and half (2.5) pages, double-spaced, which equals approximately 600-700 words.
• How to label your essay (only on page one, on left top side)

      Student Name

      ENG 111

      Essay 1

Title

·       Staple your essay.