How does the author attempt to achieve this goal? What kind of language and imagery do they use? What events or ideas do they emphasize, and what do they neglect? What kind of persona do they construct for themselves and other characters in the story?

Details: 4-5 pages, double-spaced, one-inch margins, Times New Roman 12. Upload to Canvas here (or under “Assignments>Short Essay”) No need for secondary sources or a Works Cited page.
Assignment: Dive into one of the texts that we’ve read thus far and make an argument as to whether or not it is successful. Literary “success” can mean lots of things – saving souls for Christ, winning fame, earning money, forcing a reader to look at the world differently – so to decide if a text is successful, you need to answer four questions:
What is the author trying to do with this text? What are their immediate goals for writing the text, in your opinion? Who is their primary audience? What do they hope to achieve with that audience?
How does the author attempt to achieve this goal? What kind of language and imagery do they use? What events or ideas do they emphasize, and what do they neglect? What kind of persona do they construct for themselves and other characters in the story?
Does it work? Dig deeper to see what kind of impact the story had when it was first published. What could the author have done differently to make the text more effective?
Was the text successful or unsuccessful for you in different ways? After you’ve considered what the author was trying to do and whether or not they achieved it in their own time, consider how this text resonated with you today. Did it move you? Did it give you a better understanding of a historical moment? Did it force you to look at the world a bit differently or consider something you’ve never thought of before?
Rubric / Tips:
• Focus on the text: Does this essay stay focused on the text itself, or does it float away into tangential arguments and personal reflections? Does the author back up their argument with some well-chosen quotes? Does the author dig into those quotes deeply or throw them into the essay superficially?
• Historical context: Does this essay consider the ways in which this text is shaped by and responds to the historical moment in which it arose?
• Clear writing: Is the essay’s prose clear? Is it pocked by grammatical mistakes? Are its sentences long and confusing? Is its argument made fuzzier through imprecise word choice? Is there an organized argument reflected in the essay’s organization (both at the level of individual paragraphs and the essay’s bigger “parts”)? Also: does it have a creative title?
• Argument: Does the author stay focused on and adequately develop a central argument, or do they wander among scattered observations that never add up to a single judgement? Is their argument made with sound logic and textual/historical evidence?
• Stakes: Does the author convey their sense of why this topic matters/why they found it interesting?
You’re welcome to use reflections and ideas from your previous discussion posts.

Last Completed Projects