Build
an essay around a significant answer the text reveals to a question it frames
about a topic.
Sample Essay is provided.
TASK: Through brainstorming, identify
a significant question the text ponders about a topic so that you can
identify the author’s underlying argument about it. Build a paper around that
argument to demonstrate its presence (through clear patterns of quoted
evidence, using a linked set of body paragraphs), identifying its potential
larger significance.
PURPOSE: To discover
literature’s problem-solving powers by way of shaping and supporting a
significant text-based argument. Toward this end, you’re demonstrating how a
text’s techniques contribute to its themes.
CRITERIA: Papers will be graded
on the presence of the significant question and answer, the appropriateness of
the essay’s evidence (esp. cited quotes), structure, and format, and the argument’s
clarity, complexity, unity, and significance.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Some topic ideas:
WISDOM: What, according to
Spiegelman or Woodson, is the surest means of achieving genuine wisdom? Explore the various ways characters try to
achieve wisdom to compare and reveal the one mode the author seems to champion
as the truest/most reliable method. [Note:
“wisdom” is a broad topic; successful papers tend to narrow the topic to a
specific definition of wisdom.]
POWER: It’s not just the rich and famous that are
powerful; power is located in some surprising places. Of course it derives from
such predictable things as wealth, social position, and control – but it can
also come from one’s age, career, knowledge, family, intuition, health, education,
mindset, mobility, resourcefulness, and so on. Based on the patterns of how
power gets distributed in the text, write an essay that makes an argument about what the author is saying about power’s sources,
use, or potential for good/evil. [Note:
“power” is a broad topic; successful papers narrow the subject to a specific
category of power.]
PERSPECTIVE: Humans inevitably have
differing perspectives and points-of-view. A number of questions can be
asked: What’s the main cause of this
pluralism? What’s the most-correct perspective people should adopt? Or, given
the (often mutually exclusive) variety in outlook, as an alternative to forced
conformity, how can we work together as a multi-perspectival group? Craft a
paper to pursue one such question on the
topic of perspective and its significance, as demonstrated by Spiegelman or
Woodson.
OPEN TOPIC: While reading the works, perhaps you found
some topic of interest on your own, such as the treatment of justice, character oppositions, ethnicity, gender, history or some other
topic that dwells closest to your personal interests. Write an essay – with this topic of your own choosing – on how Spiegelman or Woodson shows
its significance.