Mythology East and West Essay

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CLT3378-02: Ancient Mythology: East and West Fall 2019

Essay Draft (due Thursday, October 10)

A. General Information

1) The Essay Draft is the first, graded draft of an essay that you will later revise and submit as

the Revised Essay (which is due on Thursday, November 14).

2) You will revise the Essay Draft and submit it as the Revised Essay based on the comments

made by your instructor on your graded Essay Draft.

3) The Essay Draft must be at least 1500 words long. It must not be shorter than 1500 words,

and it should not be more than 2000 words.

4) Please include the following information at the top of the first page of your assignment:

Essay Draft name

CLT3378-02, Fall 2019 word count

5) The Essay Draft should be submitted in two formats:

a. as a paper copy in class on Thursday, October 10.

b. as a digital copy to the Turnitin link for Essay Draft under Assignments by 11:59 pm

on Thursday, October 10.

6) Both the paper copy and the digital copy should be Microsoft WORD documents, double

spaced, in 12 point font, and with 1 inch margins on the right and left of the text.

7) In order for your Essay Draft to be graded, students must submit both the paper and digital

copies.

8) For the Essay Draft, you will compare (and/or contrast; i.e., you can look just at similarities

or differences or at both) a modern work with an ancient work (from List A below).

9) Select one modern work (a movie, a TV show, a book, a poem, a song, etc.) that can be

compared with an ancient work (from List A).

10) Compare and/or contrast this work with one of the following ancient works (in List A) that

we have read and/or discussed this semester. You must use one of the works in List A:

LIST A (Acceptable Works)

The Enuma Elish The Anansi myths The Tale of Tulisa

The Baal Cycle The Raven myths The Epic of Gilgamesh

Atrahasis The Coyote myth The Tale of Buluqiya

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You may NOT use any of the following works:

LIST B (Unacceptable Works)

Genesis or any other part of the Bible

Hesiod’s Theogony

Apollodorus’ Library

Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey

Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche

Beowulf

English, German, or Hungarian folktales (Rose Tree; Juniper Tree; Singing, Soaring

Lark; Crow’s Nest)

The Prose Edda and Norse myths

B. Writing Guidelines

1) You must come up with your own thesis statement for the Essay Draft. A thesis statement is

an argument. The simplest thesis statements would be something like, “There are many

differences between A and B” or “While there are some differences between A and B, there are

also some striking similarities.” More specific thesis statements, however, are more interesting

and generally help you write better essays.

2) This is an essay, not a research paper. You should not do any outside research (especially on

the internet; see next entry). All you need for the essay are the one modern work you have

chosen and the one ancient work we have read in class.

3) Important: Beware of information you find on the web! It is often wrong, and it will be

obvious to your grader that you got your information from the web and not from the assigned

myths and readings. If you depend on the web for the information in your essays, your grade will

suffer.

4) Read very carefully the List of Errors for Essays file. These are the errors that will be

noted for you when your instructor returns to you your graded essay. The more of these errors

you can avoid, the higher the grade on your Essay Draft will likely be.

C. Common Grading Rubric

1) Be sure to read carefully the Common Grading Rubric file. This is the rubric upon which

essay grading is ultimately based for all sections of CLT3378 (Ancient Mythology), regardless of

section, semester, or instructor. (The List of Errors builds upon this grading rubric.)

2) Pay especially close attention to what the requirements are for the “A/A-” paper: “Mechanics: Sentence structure, grammar, and diction excellent; correct use of punctuation and citation style; minimal to no spelling errors; absolutely no run-on sentences or comma

splices.”

This means that if there are more than a very few spelling or grammatical errors in your essay, you

CANNOT receive an A or A-.

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3) Therefore, in order to give yourself at least the chance to receive the best possible grade on your

essay, make sure your essay has as few spelling or grammatical errors as possible! For your

essay, be sure to use “spell check” on your computer. But also read your essay aloud several times

and try to catch any remaining spelling or grammatical errors. Be sure also to read the How to

Avoid the Most Common Grammatical Errors file.

D. Structure of Essay Draft

1) Your Essay Draft should consist of:

1. an introductory paragraph (with your thesis statement)

2. at least three supporting paragraphs (each with a subthesis statement)

3. a concluding paragraph

2) Each paragraph of your essay must have at least five (5) sentences (although you will usually

want to have more than five sentences in a paragraph).

3) Your thesis statement must appear in the opening paragraph of your essay. The following

paragraphs must support this thesis or argument.

4) Each supporting paragraph must have a unique thesis statement of its own that should serve

as a subthesis to the main thesis of the paper. Each subthesis must help support the main thesis

of your essay. A subthesis must be the first one or two sentences of a given supporting

paragraph.

5) In each supporting paragraph of your essay, you must discuss both works that you have

chosen, both the modern and the ancient works.

6) The best subtheses focus on a single similarity or a single difference. For example, a

subthesis could be: “One similarity between the stories of Buluqiya and of Frodo is that in both

stories there is a magic ring.” Or for a difference, the subthesis could be: “While Buluqiya wants

to find the magic ring so that he can have it for himself, Frodo wants to destroy the magic ring he

already has.”

7) You must indicate exactly what kind of work your modern western work is. That is to say, if

you have chosen Beauty and the Beast, you must tell the reader (usually in the introductory

paragraph) that this is the Disney movie (whether the 1991 one or the 2017 one) or that this is

some other telling of the story (such as the folktale upon which the movies are based). The reader

should not have to guess what kind of work you are discussing.

8) If you are using a series (e.g., book, movie, or TV), you must indicate which

book/movie/episode you are discussing in your essay. This means you do need the titles of

individual episodes of a TV show (such as South Park).

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9) Each subthesis must refer in some way to both works that you have chosen, both the modern

and the ancient works.

10) DO NOT DIVIDE SUPPORTING PARAGRAPHS IN TWO! For the purposes of this

assignment, it does not matter how long supporting paragraphs are (although if a supporting

paragraph is much over a page in length, then your subthesis is likely too general). Make sure

you discuss BOTH works in each supporting paragraph, and make sure you have at least one

quotation from BOTH works in each supporting paragraph. If you divide supporting paragraphs

in two (i.e., if you discuss the Epic of Gilgamesh in one paragraph and the Harry Potter and the

Prisoner of Azkaban book in another), you WILL lose points on your Essay Draft.

11) In each supporting paragraph of your essay, you must give at least ONE QUOTATION

from the modern work and at least ONE QUOTATION from the ancient work you have

chosen. You must demonstrate to the reader that you have watched/listened to/read and carefully

thought about the works in question. This means that even if your modern, western work is a

movie, for example, you will still need to directly quote dialogue, song, or spoken narration

from that movie. (The only exception to this is if your modern work has little to no dialogue,

such as a graphic novel that is mainly images or a mostly or totally silent movie. In these rare

cases, you would need to describe the [silent] scene you are discussing in detail to the reader

instead of providing a quotation for that particular scene.)

12) See the Guide to Quotations file for more information about how to give quotations in your

essay.

13) Thus, a formula for writing a supporting paragraph is:

a) subthesis mentioning both works and focusing on a single similarity or difference

b) sentence introducing first quotation

c) first quotation (from a Raven myth, for example)

d) sentence explaining why first quotation is significant for subthesis

e) sentence introducing second quotation

f) second quotation (from a South Park episode, for example)

g) sentence explaining why second quotation is significant for subthesis

14) For further examples, read the Sample Paragraphs for Essays file.

15) The concluding paragraph should NOT just be a summary of your essay as whole. It should

contain thoughts that you have not yet made in your essay. It should build upon what you have

already said, but it should contain something new.

16) One way to go about writing your concluding paragraph is to talk about what the

myths/works in your essay tell us about the one modern and the one ancient culture that you are

discussing.

17) You do NOT need a works cited page or bibliography, and you do NOT need footnotes.

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E. Suggestions for Essay Draft Topics

For your one modern work, choose a modern narrative (book, movie, TV show, etc.) that you

really like and would enjoy writing about. The modern work that you pick does not have to have

mythic themes. It just has to have some similarities to an ancient myth. Some examples of

possible topics:

1) A narrative featuring a friendship between two main characters (like I Love You, Man; Star

Trek Into Darkness; Sherlock) compared to Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh or

Buluqiya and Affan in the Tale of Buluqiya.

2) An epic fantasy or science fiction narrative (like The Hobbit, The Avengers, Lord of the Rings,

Harry Potter) compared to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Tale of Buluqiya, or the Baal Cycle.

Note on #2: You can use the entire series of Lord of the Rings, of Harry Potter, or of the Rocky

movies, for example. But you can’t mix and match books and movies; you can talk about the

Lord of the Rings books or movies, but not both. You also must be specific about which book or

movie you are talking about at any point in your essay. You must say “As it says in the Two

Towers . . .” or “Aragorn says in the Return of the King . . .”.)

3) A trickster figure (Bart Simpson, Cartman, Voldemort) compared to Anansi, Raven, or

Coyote.

Note on #3: Again (see VIII. above), if you are using a TV series, you need to give the titles of

the individual episodes you are discussing.

4) A powerful and possibly evil female character (Grendel’s mother from the movie [NOT the

book] Beowulf or Ursula from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid) compared to Tiamat.

5) The Tale of Tulisa compared to the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast.

Note on #5: If you do compare the Tale of Tulisa with Beauty and the Beast, do NOT just look at

similarities. These two stories are essentially the same story (or folktale tale type): the Tale of

Tulisa is an example of ATU 425: The Search for the Lost Husband, while Beauty and the Beast

is in a subcategory of the former, ATU 425C: Beauty and the Beast. Therefore, you will want to

focus on differences, not similarities, between the Tale of Tulisa and Beauty and the Beast.