Assignment: Write a short essay (minimum 750 words) that defends a thesis you developed through a close critical reading/analysis of one of the following works:
Updikes A&P, Porters The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, Walkers Everyday Use, Carvers Cathedral, Chopins The Storm, Tans A Pair of Tickets, Faulkners Barn Burning, Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums, Alexies This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown, Hurstons Sweat, OBriens The Things They Carried, OConnors A Good Man is Hard to Find, or Achebes Dead Mans Path.
Write the essay examining how a vivid central character (like Sammy in A&P, Maggie in Everyday Use, or the narrator of Cathedral e.g.) evidences significant change or development in the story. You may not write on any story not on this listas fine as many of the other stories in ch. 1-7, are they do not feature the kinds of dynamic characters that these stories do.
An essay that examines a story not on this list will receive an F. A plagiarized essay will result in an F in the course. This is your warning.
The critical response essay relies on textual support from the primary text (secondary sources are not required) not plot summary to develop the students argument. Do not confuse critical analysis with plot summary; the goal is to develop, sustain, and advance a thesis based on a critique of the primary text. Your thesis should explicitly state how you see the character change and what that change means to you.
The essay should be built through a series of claims presented with evidence drawn from the storyeach body paragraph should contribute to the whole essay by supporting the main claim of the paper in some way and should have at least one direct quote used as evidence for that supporting claim.
A sample thesis might be: Although Sartoris Snopes grew up believing that his father Abner was honorable, Sarty slowly and then abruptly recognizes fact that Abner respects neither men nor laws nor justice and irreversibly rejects his fathers nihilism.
Or, Jing-mei Woo learns that her mothers Chinese heritage is not an innate monster or mutation waiting to be let go in her body, but something honorable and bigger than herself.
