American Short Stories

(Here is the link: there are 3 stories to choose to write an essay)
https://americanliterature.com/author/ambrose-bierce/short-story/an-occurrence-at-owl-creek-bridge
https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/the-gift-of-the-magi
https://americanliterature.com/author/kate-chopin/short-story/regret
Instructions for Essay #3: American Short Stories
For your next essay, you will write a five or more paragraph essay with an introduction, body paragraphs (3-5), and a conclusion. Your essay will be typed in MLA format and submitted on Canvas. I want you to think about what you have been reading regarding American short stories. The three short stories we have read involve different characters, settings, plots, and themes.
Purpose of this essay:
To establish, discuss, and analyze literary elements of an American short story.
To be able to demonstrate understanding of literary elements in a short story through analysis of the text.
In your essay you should:
Describe a main character from one of the stories. What are his or her strengths and weaknesses as a character? For example, is the character strong, smart, loving, brave, loyal, hopeful, or independent? You must use quoted examples from the readings to explain and support your thoughts on the character’s traits.
Consider the following for the structure of the essay:
Introduction paragraph: Introduce the topic in general with a hook and a short summary of the short story (with author and “title”) leading to a thesis statement describing a main character’s positive and negative traits.
Body paragraphs: Each body should describe either a positive or a negative trait of the main character you have chosen, but you should have many bodies and describe many traits. Discuss how these characteristics are shown in the story by using quotes from the story. Please keep in mind that you do not need to mention specific paragraphs or page numbers from the story in your essay. Writing something like: In the story, Jim says, “………………………….” is enough (Don’t write the quote in italics in your essay, however).
Conclusion paragraph: Summarize your essay and give your overall thoughts on the story and the character.
I will grade you in the following areas, so please ask yourself these questions:
Introduction:
Did I start with an interesting hook?
Did I include a short summary of the story while mentioning the title in quotation marks and the author?
Did I transition from the summary of the story to focus on my thesis statement?
Did I write a strong, clear thesis statement about a main character’s traits that I will discuss in the body?
Body:
Did I write strong, clear topic sentences describing the main idea of the paragraph for each body?
Did I describe and give details supporting the main idea of the paragraph?
Did I include quoted material from the story that supports my main ideas?
Did I follow the steps for using quotes including: 1) introducing my idea; 2) introducing the source (the story); 3) presenting the quote as it appears in the story but inside quotation marks; 4) explaining the importance of the quote?
Did I explain what the quotes mean and why I think the quotes from the story support my main ideas in the paragraphs?
Conclusion:
Did I adequately summarize the main ideas of my entire essay?
Did I give my final thoughts about the story as a whole and the character that I wrote about?
MLA Format:
Did I follow all the guidelines for MLA format, such as double spacing, last name and page number, heading, font, size, etc?
Did I include the Works Cited page in the correct format as the last page of my essay?
Remember that
your essay should be typed in MLA format.
your essay should be at least two and a half pages (800 or more words).
your essay should also include a Works Cited page as the last page (remember that this does not count for your page requirement).
you should do an outline first to write down your ideas in order.
your should write a practice draft of your essay to see your ideas and see what you might want to change.

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