Overview
Essay 2: Multiple Source Essay
This essay is a multiple-source paper worth 250 points. For this essay, you will choose one (1) short story from our textbook that you have read for this class. It must be one you have NOT written on already. You will then consider the literary terms that we have learned (irony, foreshadowing, theme, narration, tone, etc.) and the discussions from class. You will practice prewriting exercises and develop an interesting thesis. Please remember the goal of this class is to be able to interpret literature, to write analytically, to analyze information, and to write a researched essay. By choosing an appropriate topic and creating a strong thesis, you are demonstrating that you can analyze literature and that you understand the rhetorical situation. If you are not sure that your thesis is feasible, check with me. You may eventually revise and expand Essay 2 into Essay 3, so be sure to choose your topic wisely. You will be working with it for several weeks! As you do your research, save any sources that you do not use in Essay 2. You might be able to use them in your next paper.
Requirements
You should have a workable thesis, an outline, and a plan for research in place several days before the essay is due.
An example of a good thesis sentence is as follows:
By confining the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper to a former nursery, Charlotte Perkins Gilman hints at societal limitations of many American women near the turn of the twentieth century.
An example of an inappropriate thesis is as follows:
The narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper is confined to a nursery.
Do you see the difference? The first example allows you to develop several body paragraphs in support; the second example is just a statement of fact, it cannot be argued.
This essay will be 850-1000 words and in MLA format. You will use one (1) primary source (the story you have chosen from the book) and one (1) secondary source (a peer-reviewed scholarly journal article). Therefore, you will have a total of two (2) sources on your works cited page. This is a requirement, not a suggestion. I will provide you with strategies for finding sources; refer to the Resources tab in Moodle.
We will have revision/editing workshops as well as peer review sessions. Attendance and participation are mandatory on this/these day(s).
I expect everyone to come up with an original thesis/topic based on our readings that interest them. Think back on the in-class discussions on the themes, symbols, motifs, narration styles, etc. from the short stories. If you have been taking notes and participating in the discussions, this should be no problem.
This is what i have right now:
Isaiah Crawford
ENGL 102-001 Todd
3 October 2022
Essay 2 Outline
Word:306
Thesis Statement: In the story Good People, David Wallace uses irony to depict the internal war within the character Lane Dean. Because the dialogue omits the girls perspective, the reader is left with the descriptive irony that portrays a struggle between Lanes personal emotions, and his religious beliefs.
Body Paragraph:
In this paragraph I will discuss the emotions that the character Lane is at conflict with. Here is an example of a quotation that I will use:
He knew it was wrong, knew something was required of him that was not this terrible frozen care and caution, but he pretended to himself he did not know (Wallace 117).
I will also connect this with the importance of how the author lays out the irony.
He felt a terrible inner resistance but could not feel what it was that it resisted (Wallace 119).
Furthermore, I will grapple with why it is crucial to understand the reason for omitting the girls perspective.
This down to earth girl that smelled good and wanted to be a nurse would take and hold one of his hands in both of hers to unfreeze him and make him look at her, and she would say that she can not do it (Wallace 120).
In the body paragraph I will engage with scholar David Rando and his analysis on the irony throughout Good People.
Conclusion:
For the conclusion paragraph I will drive home the points from the body paragraph while it restates my thesis to provide clarity in the essay. While doing so, I will also reengage with the scholar.
Work Cited
Rando, David P. David Foster Wallace and Lovelessness. Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 59, no. 4, 2013, pp. 57595. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24246955. Accessed 4 Oct. 2022.