Essay #3 Researched Essay of Literary Analysis
Choosing one of the options below, you are again analyzing a short story to support a clear and precise thesis arguing the story’s theme. Your essay will include select quotations from scholarly, literary research (secondary sources) to supplement and support your points. You may only use sources from the RCSJ-Cumberland library—databases, books, reference room. No Internet (website) sources are allowed and will result in a below average grade. Locating appropriate secondary sources from the library for this assignment is covered in the “Academic Research for Literary Analysis” content.
From your textbook, “your argument about the literary text should be the focus of your essay, and sources should function simply as tools that you use to deepen and enrich your argument about the literary text. They shouldn’t substitute for it…. Sources, in other words, are not the source of your ideas” (Mays 1081).
Your primary purpose is to analyze/explicate a short story to support your argument of the story’s theme. Quotations from literary research appear occasionally to supplement and elaborate your ideas.
· Essay must use a minimum of four/maximum of six secondary sources (scholarly articles about the story retrieved from the college library).
· Essay must include at least one direct quotation from each secondary source, correct in format, integration, and citation, and used in the body paragraphs.
· Each body paragraph must offer one to three direct quotations from the story (primary source), correct in format, integration, and citation.
· Clearly explain the relevance of all quotations.
· Essay is to be 1200 – 1800 words (the works cited page is never part of the word count).
· This is not a five-paragraph essay. This extended essay should present at least five body paragraphs for a total of at least seven.
· Works cited entries are to be in alphabetical order, double spaced, use hanging indent, and be same font size and type as rest of essay. All entries must be in MLA format.
· Any ideas that are not your own are clearly identified by integrating as a direct quotation. See course policy on plagiarism.
· Review previous instruction on the introduction, thesis, body paragraphs, and the conclusion.
· Remember MEAL for each body paragraph.
· Review course requirements for paragraph sentence minimums and overall essay formatting.
Assignment options: Choose one.
1) What does Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” suggest about gender roles?
2) What does Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” suggest about social inequality?
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