English 201
Essay #2 Paper Prompt
Directions: After reading Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, write an essay addressing how the novel addresses that unit.
Sites of Conflict
Gender and Sexuality
The Self and Beyond
There are several steps in this process.
Step 1: Brainstorming
First, you’ll need to pick one of the above units. Then, you’ll need to narrow down a topic within that thematic unit, coming up with a tentative thesis about how that topic is explored in the novel. Let’s take an example from Adichie’s “Half of a Yellow Sun,” which we discussed under the rubric of Sites of Conflict. Within that short story, brainstorm, what were some of sites that existed in that short story over which there were conflicts that the short story explored?
As I think about it, a few sites of conflict come to mind:
1. the declining socio-economic status of the narrator’s family
2. the role of patriotism, or, put another way, what is it that we owe to our country?
3. how we understand the idea of the refugee within one’s own country—can a refugee also be a
citizen?
4. in what ways does war rob us of our humanity?
Once I’ve settled on a site of conflict I want to explore more within the literature, my next step would be to form it into a question to see how the short story answers my question. This, becomes the tentative thesis for my essay.
Step 2: Asking and Answering a Key Question: Creating a Proposal
Using Adichie’s story, again, I might pick “Can a refugee also be a citizen?” I then ask myself, how does Adichie answer this question, through the content and form of her story?
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