Your final paper should make a bold, cohesive, well-supported and specific argument on a topic of your choice. If you don’t know what you’d like to write about, I suggest you read back over your reading journal to see if you notice any patterns in your own attention. Are you, for example, consistently interested in agency? In the surreal? In metaphor, or faith, or irony? If you’d like help choosing a topic, please come talk to me.
Write about at least one and no more than three texts that we have discussed this semester. If you did not write on Heart of Darkness, please include Beloved as one of your texts, or use it as your primary text. You are of course welcome to write on Beloved even if you did write on Heart of Darkness for paper #2.
As you refine your ideas, please carefully consider my comments (especially the rubric comments) on your other papers. Also consider the work we’ve been doing all semester to nuance questions, tighten arguments, read closely, and mine the texts for solid evidence. Ideally, this paper will balance 1) your personal curiosity with 2) plenty of solid, specific evidence based on respectful close reading, and also 3) a bold conclusion that tells us, in a nutshell, why your analysis matters. What has your careful attention to this text, or to these several texts, helped you to understand about some (specific!) aspect of the real world?
You will produce two drafts of this paper. The first draft is not a rough draft. It should be as good as you can make it, and then we will work together to make it better. I highly recommend you meet with me at least once during your process to discuss your work. Remember, you’re required to attend a paper conference with me at some point during the semester; don’t wait until the last minute.
Good luck! I look forward to reading these.
Logistics: 5-6 pgs., double spaced; 12-pt. Times New Roman or Garamond; one-inch margins; parenthetical citations, including line numbers for poems or plays. Ask in class, email me, or come into my office hours if you have questions or want direct feedback on your paper in the early stages. A (thoughtful and complete) first draft is due the Friday before Thanksgiving (November 18) at 5PM. We’ll have a conclusion workshop on the Wednesday before your final draft is due
