Option 1. The Investigative Essay
“The essay is a literary form dating back to ancient times, with a long and glorious history. As the record par excellence of a mind tracking its thoughts, it can be considered the intellectual bellwether of any modern society. The great promise of essays is the freedom they offer to explore, digress, acknowledge uncertainty; to evade dogmatism and embrace ambivalence and contradiction; to engage in intimate conversation with one’s readers and literary forebears; and to uncover some unexpected truth, preferably via a sparkling literary style. Flexible, shape-shifting, experimental, as befits its name derived from the French (essai = “attempt”), it is nothing if not versatile.
The Glorious American Essay, Phillip Lopate
After reading several short stories together, you compose an essay that, as Lopate so eloquently states above, “explores, digresses […]acknowledges uncertainty, […]makes an attempt.” How can an essay open the door to an intellectual journey? In other words, this is not your traditional analytical essay or “book report.” Rather, this should be an authentic exploration of something you want to attempt to understand about writing as a tool to capture life. You can closely analyze a single short story that we read in class and try to understand how it’s constructed. You can compare two or three short stories we read because you feel like there’s something uncannily similar about them and you want to understand what that is. You can write about the short story genre broadly, and what it offers to a 21st Century reader. You can write about one of the authors we read, and how the story we read mirrors something about their life. The point is, you’re trying to figure something out. This project can be based in either research or interpretation, but it must be driven by a question. You will meet with your teacher at least once to review your plans for this project. Your essay should be between 1,500 – 2,000 words (roughly 6 -8 pages, 12pt font, double-spaced).
Making an attempt through Words: The Short Story & The Investigative Essay
Guided question: How might the shrinking attention spans attributed to the modernization of media influence how we approach literature?
Introduction:
Hook: In a world where endless scrolling can commence at the tap of a screen.
Thesis statement:
Background on attention spans: Due to TikTok, kids and teenagers have access to copious amounts of information that is conveyed through 30-second videos. This has led to their brain losing the ability to focus longer to absorb information, thereby reducing their attention span.
Body 1:
Topic sentence:
Body 2:
Topic sentence:
Body 3:
Topic sentence:
Links between body 1, 2 and 3:
Significance:
Conclusion:
Restate thesis:
Summary:
Significance:
ASSESSMENT:
I. The reading portion of this project (Part 1) will be assessed according to our two World Literature Approaches to Learning criteria. See Canvas for a reminder of these two Approaches to Learning.
II. Additionally, your writing (Part 2) will be assessed along the following AWE Outcomes:
ASSESSMENT for Option 1, THE INVESTIGATIVE ESSAY
Creativity
Create original expressions of emotion, experience, and thought
Not Yet
Developing
Your essay is not driven by a question you attempt to understand or answer.
Proficient
Your essay is driven by a question you attempt to understand and answer or a thoughtful thesis that you prove through careful seeking and analysis.
Advanced
+ You approach the “Essay as an Attempt” with a depth of emotional intelligence, open-mindedness, and curiosity.
You worry more about experimenting with personally, intellectually, and/or socially relevant questions, than making the obvious case found in most high school five-paragraph essays.
You may develop a complex, nuanced thesis or a compelling wondering. However, even if your writing bears ambiguity of conclusions, your work is still coherent and highly readable. In other words, you maintain logic and coherence of form, even when the content of your work is seeking.
Critical Thinking
Analyze the sufficiency of the evidence in support of a claim & proportion one’s own beliefs to the evidence
Not Yet
Developing
You don’t cite evidence for your arguments from the texts you have consulted, or you cite text without elaborating on how it connects to the broader point you are making.
Quoted text is used merely to stand in for your own original interpretation.
Proficient
You cite evidence for your arguments from the texts you have consulted by weaving them organically into the point you are making.
Quoted text is used to support or elevate what you are arguing, not to stand in for your own original interpretation.
Advanced
+ You are aware of how solidly your analysis is anchored in textual evidence, and you carefully employ epistemological markers to indicate your level of certainty.
For example, some pieces of your resource text(s) might simply make you wonder or question, without yielding a certain conclusion, while other pieces of your resource text(s) might yield themselves to building a solid case. You indicate to your reader that you are grappling with the different elements that different texts have to offer.