essay 3-4 page essay
sadzizali
engl2333.docxFORMAL ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS
For your formal essay, you are to use the two texts—Metamorphosis and A Room of One’s Own, along with information from the following excerpt from the text Modernism, to write an an essay of 3-4 pages and must include a Works Cited page. For your convenience, I’ve provided the proper MLA format of the Modernism text below; there is a citation for each author of the sections noted from the original text.
To clarify, if you use information from Bru’s section of text, you would cite Bru; however, if you use information from Fernald’s essay, you would cite Fernald. If you use information from both authors, then you cite both in your Works Cited (and accordingly parenthetically) in your paper. While there are other characteristics of the literary period of modernism, for this paper, we will focus on the following:
Modernism characteristics:
a. Rejected traditional beliefs within society
b. Writers questioned conventions and customs within their society, including alienation, marginalization, patriarchy, oppression (whether religious, social, political, or capitalistic)
c. Challenged said conventions and customs as lived experiences
d. Fought against the status quo of society around them through exposure of the collapse and breakdown of traditional values by pointing out the evils within society that existed that allowed alienation and separation of the past
According to the author Anne Fernald:
“The modernist pioneers sought to shake off the burden of the past. The effect of this unburdening was as if an ancient vase had shattered on the floor. Faced with a mass of fragments, writers adopted different strategies….What modernist [writers did share] was the consciousness of the past as a commodity that they could manipulate, construct, use, or abandon. While modernists actively resisted anything traditional in their work, they mined the past for heretofore-overlooked models of innovation and imagination.”
“Basically the writers remade tradition by arranging the canon to work within their belief that literature of the modernist period in its break with tradition included modernists’ reaction against established religious, political, and social views.” Pages 168-169
According to Sascha Bru, modernist writers rebelled against tradition by “destroying the illusion of organic beauty [and] expressing the breakdown of communicability.
[Modernist writers] “depicted society in a state of disintegration and dehumanization.” Page 111
Works Cited
Bru, Sascha. "Modernism after Marxism." Modernism. Ed. Vivian Liska and Astradur Eysteinsson. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. 157-172. Print.
Fernald, Anne. "Modernism and Tradition." Modernism. Ed. Vivian Liska and Astradur Eysteinsson. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007. 157-172. Print.
Formal Essay Topic
Read the supplied information from above by the two authors of chapters from the Modernism text and the modernism characteristics. Then reread the texts by Kafka and Woolf (Metamorphosis, A Room of One’s Own), looking for ideas within the text that relate to the characteristics provided above, and more specifically, ideas that link the philosophies on modernistic texts from Bru and Fernald. Next, construct a thesis (and paper) that shows how Kafka and Woolf’s texts reinforce the claims by Bru and Fernald of the modernistic period and literature.
Actual essay question: What modernistic characteristics--as noted in the information by Bru and Fernald above--are reinforced by Kafka and Woolf in Metamorphosis and A Room of One’s Own?
(Remember to use a minimum of three points in your paper—whether you use one, two, or three characteristics listed above as compared to both texts or one characteristic that reappears three times or more within the two texts.)
FORMAL ESSAY REMINDERS
1. Do not forget to review comments from your Short Response. I expect you to have learned from your last assignment. If you make the same mistakes again, I will have to assume you ignored the comments, and your grade will suffer :(
2. Do not plagiarize. Should you decide to look on the Internet for answers, you will receive an F for the course, no matter what your grade is currently, as the Drop Date of October 2nd will have passed.
3. The only materials you need to complete this essay are:
· Texts Metamorphosis and A Room of One’s Own – from our Norton Anthology
· Information above from the Modernism text
· THIS MEANS THAT YOU ARE TO HAVE THREE OR FOUR TEXTS ONLY TO CITE IN YOUR WORKS CITED---depending upon if you use both authors’ information in your paper. No online/outside sources should be used.
4. How to not cheat: Read the topic question closely. Read the information over the topic carefully. For many of you on your Short Response, you failed to incorporate the topic question into your paper as the main idea. For example, students may have chosen Enlightenment characteristics, but failed to mention the period throughout the rest of your paper. This essay will contain the literary characteristics of modernism as explained in two separate works, plus the information provided above from the Modernism text chapters.
5. Students will have already read Metamorphosis and A Room of One’s Own once; now go back and reread the text, highlighting characteristics (points) chosen to address within the paper. Out of those points, choose the TOP three ideas/points to use in the essay to prove that those ideas chosen exist within the two texts. These questions will help deciding your thesis:
· How does Kafka and Woolf’s texts exhibit the modernistic characteristic of rejecting traditional beliefs within society? (Then find a quote or reference within Bru and/or Fernald’s info above that corroborates your idea(s) )
· How does Kafka and Woolf’s texts address the idea of alienation (or marginalization, or patriarchy, or oppression) as noted in the characteristics of modernism? (Example of thesis: Frank Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own reinforce the modernistic characteristic of alienation through Gregor’s _____________, ___________ and Woolf’s narrator when she ___________. [Then your points for each paragraph would be whatever you identify to be in the blanks of that sentence.]
6. Then pick at least one or two quotes per point to use to prove your topic sentence of your paragraph. Your paper must have a thesis that restates the discussion question and is worded to prove your statement. Each paragraph must have a topic sentence that states what you will prove in the paragraph---it cannot be simply a true statement about the text, author, or protagonist.
7. Each paragraph will have two to three quotes that prove your topic sentence. These quotes must be integrated properly into the sentence and cannot stand alone. Everyone in the class should know how to do this properly according to MLA format after the first paper. If you fail to cite in MLA format properly and you fail to integrate quotes with proper punctuation, capitalization, and quote marks, I will deduct 10 points right off the top of your paper. For every quote in your paper, you need to offer an explanation sentence that explains why that quote proves your point. And finally, every paragraph must have a final sentence that sums up the point you've proved in your paper. This is all info from the first paper. The difference with THIS paper is this paper is longer and you can use more than one quote per paragraph if necessary to prove your point. Your paper will also have an intro and conclusion paragraph. Again, your intro MUST include a thesis as the last sentence. Your intro must be more than five sentences long and relate back to the main topic, putting your thesis of what you will prove as your very last sentence of the intro paragraph. If you do not include a thesis as directed, I will deduct 10 points off the top of your paper. This is is basic writing.
8. Remember to italicize the title of the texts.
9. Your paper MUST include a Works Cited page where your sources are cited properly according to MLA format. If you claim the editor of the anthology is the author of the text, I will automatically deduct 10 points from your paper.
10. This paper should be approximately 3-4 pages long. Rather than add filler words to increase the length, use more quotes to support your points or add an additional body paragraph and point to equal 4 instead of 3.
11. Do not use I, me, you, us, we, your, our, etc. in your formal essay. As noted previously, it is never okay to state: I believe what the author is trying to do is.....My opinion is….I feel that…..I believe……etc. Stick to proving your points. Example from another paper:
· Dostoevsky and Ibsen show that social determinism exists within their texts by creating a world in which their protagonists are constantly judged by their fellow peers and cannot meet the standards expected. (Literature is present tense---Woolf argues….Bru acknowledges….)
12. Do not use words such as many, several, lots of, completely filled, all over, throughout, things--- in the paper where you could use the actual number or be more specific. For example, do not write:
· There are many examples of allegory in Beowulf.
· Typically, in a basic paper, you will typically offer three examples. So for your topic sentence write: Within the text Beowulf, the medieval characteristic, allegory, is shown as Grendel is referred toas the demon.
13. A second no-no in writing is to make reference to the page or line number where a quote is found or an idea is found. Imagine how boring it would be for the reader to read the following passage:
In the ancient text Beowulf¸on line number 235 it states that King Hrothgar wants Beowulf to come to Hereot. Then later on on that same page it says on line number 243 and 274 he hopes that he will bring glory to the once famous mead-hall. But towards the middle of the poem on lines 442 through 443 he says, ………..then on line 676 Wiglaf claims that he wants to go as well on line 922.
This makes it extremely difficult to read. Instead, using parenthetical citations allows the writer to argue his or her point without the messy page numbers in mid-sentence, and if he or she chooses to look up the quote, it may be done by simply referring to the citation at the end of the sentence.
14. Use present tense with literature as you are experiencing the text presently. For example, In Behn's text, Oronooko embodies.....(not embodied). However, if you recap a period that is in the past, then you can state it as such. For example: While Oroonoko was on the ship, he experienced _____, but when he reaches the plantation, he faces _________.
15. You must identify the author by full name in your intro; however, in the remainder of the paper, address the author by last name only.
16. If you have any questions about the paper, do not wait until the night it is due to email me. Plan ahead. Also plan ahead in case you have a power outage, etc. that hinders you turning your paper in on time.
17. You will not have the opportunity to redo this paper. Get it right the first time :)
18. Do not email me AFTER the fact to tell me someone is in the hospital, and you couldn't turn it in.
19. I will not be returning full comments on this paper as I did the first; however, I will make general comments upon reading.
20. Complete your assignment in a proper document (Word) and submit as an attachment in the drop box. Do not type your paper within the confines of the drop box. It must be a Word document. A .wps or Wordpad document will not allow me to view or make comments.
General Format Guidelines
· Double-space the text of your paper, and use a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman). Whatever font you choose, MLA recommends that the regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are recognizable one from another. The font size should not be bigger than 12 pt.
· Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.
· Indent the first line of paragraphs one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you use the Tab key as opposed to pushing the Space Bar five times.
· Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin and includes your last name: i.e. Boutwell 1.
