ESSAY WRITING
1. Types of Essays: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/685/
2. "Formula" for Writing Literary Analysis Essay, with Examples:
http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/staff/doherty/litanalysis.htm
ANALYSIS WRITING MODELS EXPLAINED
3. MODEL SHORT ANSWER
SAMPLE QUESTION from "The Possibility of Evil" by Shirley Jackson:
Discuss Miss Strangeworth's motivations for sending gossipy letters and making everyone in her town paranoid. Then extend that discussion to explain what is ironic about Miss Strangeworth’s motives.
SAMPLE SHORT ANSWER:
Miss Strangeworth believes it’s better to promote suspicion and anxiety over evil than to ignore the possibility of evil. By writing this into the plot, Shirley Jackson uses situational irony because Miss Strangeworth motives reveal that she takes pleasure in undermining others’ security: “Miss Strangeworth liked writing her letters” (194). She promotes evil by trying to prevent it.
WHAT MAKES THIS A GOOD ANSWER:
a. The answer addresses the question. It include key words, names, and details: "Miss Strangeworth," "situational irony," "promotes evil."
b. It lets the source-text help answer the question--in this case, the short story quote on page 194 is used to give TEXT-BASED PROOF that the answer is correct.
c. It CITES the source-text by giving the page or paragraph number in parentheses. Note that when parenthetical citations follow quotes, the punctuation moves to the RIGHT of the parenthesis.
d. It uses correct grammar and variety of sentence lengths help the reader read it correctly.
4. MODEL FORMATTING FOR MULTIPARAGRAPH WRITING
MLA HEADING:
Your name
My name
Class and Period
Date
TITLE:
All writing and assignments should have a title.
PARAGRAPH FORMULA:
All paragraphs should have a TOPIC SENTENCE, a COMMENTARY by the writing, some CONCRETE DETAIL, and a CLOSING SENTENCE. In other words,
TS
CM
CD
CS
This doesn't necessarily mean FOUR SENTENCES exactly--it's a formula, and you use the number of sentences needed to accomplish this formula while meeting the specific teacher requirements.
MODEL PARAGRAPHS CATEGORIZED BY TYPE
CREATIVE RESPONSE THAT AIMS AT....
Connecting Literature to Life:
(The following model is a response on the theme of “talking dogs” from Chapter III of The Way to Rainy Mountain)
In chapter III the three voices are tied together by the importance of dogs to the Kiowa. The narrator emphasizes the early days before the Kiowa had acquired horses. This would be at the beginning of their journey before their contact with the Plains tribes. He emphasizes how closely the people used to live in contact with nature. The statement “That was a long time ago, when dogs could talk” emphasizes this close relationship. Early hunters and gatherers had to read and understand the behavior of animals in order to survive. Hunters today must be able to understand the “language” of dogs in order to understand their signals. Anyone who has ever hunted with a dog knows that man and dog do indeed “talk” to each other.
Autobiographical Narrative:
Brian is a middle-aged high-school theater teacher in Bowie, Maryland. He answered one of my message board posts about an upcoming audition for our school’s performance of The Sound of Music. I was 17 years old at the time and greatly desired a part in the musical. Brian had expert advice for how to nail the audition, and as a result I was cast in the role of Maria. Needless to say, we began to communicate regularly via e-mail. My high school drama director had very little experience, so I wrote Brian regarding my struggles with developing character. Brian has written on numerous occasions about coming to see me perform, but it hasn’t happened yet. Instead I mail him videos of my performances. We have been writing for four years now, and I never perform without reading advice from him before going on stage. To this day, he is still my mentor, even though I’ve never seen a picture of him or heard his voice.
Argument/Persuasive exposition or narrative:
Not all thieves lurk in dark alleys and parks. Some sit with their faces lit by the glow of their computer monitors, copying, pasting, and printing. It may seem like just another helpful source of information, but the Internet has taken the theft of “intellectual property” to a new level. Part of the problem is that most students don’t really know the exact definition of plagiarism or its consequences. Some say that using someone else’s ideas without attributing them is a form of theft, but most people don’t think of it as a serious crime.
Persuasion Using Narrative:
I’m almost asleep when a loud buzzing sound fills my ear. A disturbing annoyance cancels all thoughts of sleep, disturbs all peace. Buzzzzzzzz...buzzzzzzzz...buzzzzzzz. Only a mosquito can make that sound. How did it get in here? Buzzzzz...buzzzzzzz.
I swat and slap at this annoying creature. I’ll get it; I know I will. I’ll knock it down in midair and put it out of its misery. That itsy-bitsy pest can’t survive my powerful swipes. So I swing to the left, to the right, above my head, over my stomach, everywhere. I don’t miss an inch of the darkness. Nothing could survive this extreme attack of mine! I probably look like a crazed wind turbine. There, I’m certain now it has to be dead. I had to hit it, with my arms flying everywhere swatting and swiping. It is probably knocked dead, somewhere on the floor . . . I’ll just clean it up in the morning.
ANALYSIS THAT USES...
Cause-Effect Analysis of Issue:
With only 2 elephant species left out of 600, the danger of extinction is imminent. If the population in any particular area drops below 100 individuals (as it has in several parks), that population is virtually doomed, having entered an “extinction vortex.” Continued inbreeding leads to genetic deterioration, which results in fewer reproductive males and females being born. The numbers begin to drop, and the cycle continues until the population completely dies out. Evidence of this genetic deterioration can be seen in elephant tusks, which are gradually becoming smaller. All elephants with exceptionally large tusks have already been poached.
Character Analysis of Literature:
(responding to Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck ClubJ
As children, the daughters in this book are ashamed of their mothers and don’t take them very seriously, dismissing them as quirky and odd. “I could never tell my father . . . How could I tell him my mother was crazy?” (Tan 117). They don’t try to comprehend their culture, which is a big part of understanding their traditional Chinese mothers. On page 6, one of the daughters states, “I can never remember things I don’t understand in the first place,” referring to Chinese expressions her mother used. When their mothers show pride in them, the girls only show their embarrassment. One daughter shows her shame when she says to her mother, “I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everyone I’m your daughter” (101). The girls cannot relate to their mothers because they were raised in a different world. No matter how much the mothers care for them or how much they sacrifice to make their girls’ lives better, the daughters are blind to their mothers’ pain and feelings.
Responding to Themes of Literature:
The novel Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher depicts the story of a group of teenagers who learn to stand up for themselves and each other when “bad adults” present them with difficult and demeaning situations. One of the novel’s dominant themes is revealed when the character Steve Ellerby introduces the popular song “From a Distance”to fellow students in the Contemporary American Thought class. The lyrics of the song and Ellerby’s explanation as to their meaning for him suggest that God watches the earth “from a distance” and relies on his creations to help themselves and each other overcome obstacles to personal happiness such as depression, pain, despair, ridicule, loss, loneliness, cruelty, betrayal, abandonment, fear, insecurity, injustice, or anger.
Responding to an Author’s Background or beliefs:
According to the insights of Chris Crutcher, God sees the world “From a Distance,” so people have to help themselves and each other when faced with unbearable and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. His outcast characters rely on themselves and each other to cope with pain, insecurity, loss, abandonment, and ridicule, eventually realizing the kind of self confidence that allows them to stand up for themselves in any situation that threatens their physical, spiritual, or emotional well-being. Chris Crutcher’s story implies his strong belief that although God may be “at a distance,” He expresses His love through the people in our lives.
Analytical Literature Comparison :
iThe House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and Noone Writes to the Colonel by Garcia Marquez strike the reader as oddly similar in their use of the themes of greed and gluttony. Each story has character that represents the burning desire for money, power and self-indulgence. In The House of the Spirits these traits are shown in Esteban Trueba, while in No One Writes To the Colonel they are shown in Sabas. Through out the respective stories, the greed and gluttony expressed by these characters is the cause of their wealth and power, but is also responsible for their inner-turmoil and negative perception by the society in which they live. From a distance, it appears that Trueba and Sabas are within reach of all their goals, while a closer look reveals that the personal relationships they most desire are hindered by the very ambition that lifted them to their high places in society.
BUSINESS WRITING:
Letter:
355 Hutchinson Road
Pascoag, RI 02859
November 5, 2000
Ms. Anne Cline, Head Cook
Bay High School
4562 Birch Road
Pascoag, RI 02859
Dear Ms. Cline:
Last summer I became a vegetarian. After visiting my uncle’s farm in Iowa, I couldn’t bear the thought of eating meat anymore. When school started, I thought I could eat school lunches by simply staying away from meat dishes. My plan worked for a few weeks, but it got tough to eat peanut-butter sandwiches and applesauce every day. The school lunch program is great for most students, but it doesn’t work well for vegetarians.
Sincerely,
John Smith
BASIC ESSAY OUTLINE: RESPONDING TO LITERATURE
Follow the link below for how to write an outline as well as how to write a comparison paper that discusses literature:
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/eng256/support/litcompare.htm