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First paper - World Literature II

Your paper needs to be 3-5 pages in MLA style. You need to pick a topic from the list at the end of the handout. The paper is due on June 21st. You should pick one topic. I expect you to follow this format:

Topics:

1. Role of Nature (Wordsworth Poems)

2. Role of death (Emily Dickinson, the poems posted in the module)

3. Role of the self (Emily Dickinson, the poems posted in the module)

4. Idea of revenge (Cask of Amontillado)

5. Insanity (Cask of Amontillado)

6. Social injustice or civil rights (Notes of a Native Son)

7. How his father’s death affected Baldwin (Notes of a Native Son)

8. Inevitable of Death (Death Constant Beyond Love)

9. Representation of Politics (Death Constant Beyond Love)

Introductory paragraph: You need to end your paragraph with a thesis statement, with the points you are going to make in your body. Your thesis is your argument for the paper. You must present an argument about the text and how it is seen in the text; An example is:

Within Wordsworth's two poems, the importance of nature to the individual is illustrated through a, b, c, and d.

This thesis presents an argument about the text and outlines the points the paper will make to support it.

Your body paragraphs need to start with the topic sentence, which should come from the body points in your thesis. Your body paragraph should only have one point. Your topic sentence states the argument of the paragraph. You should also include evidence from the text and a detailed analysis of how this evidence supports your point. You should have 4-5 sentences of analysis after each quote. You should have a very short summary. Analysis is not a summary.

Then, of course, you will have the concluding paragraph.

In-text Quotation

When you quote from the text, you need to make sure that your quotes start within a sentence. You need to create the sentence and incorporate the quote within the sentence. This is an example:

At the end of the day, Wilbur made “in excess of half a million dollars” (John, pg. 15).

If you do not have the page number, you just use the last name of the author

If you are citing from a poem, use the line number.