LIT 210 AMERICAN LITERATURES TO 1865
Essay 1 on Unit 3
Sounding a Nation: Many Voices of the Eighteenth Century (+)
Due Friday, November 11 (flexible), by email; Subject Line: 210 YourLastName Essay 1
(plus electronic rough drafts emailed as a separate attachment, including Writer’s Checklist and 2
Peer Editing Responses; or hard copies of rough stuff okay)
To articulate some of your thoughts about how these early voices speak about American issues of e pluribus unum , consider two or more voices from our readings in Unit 3, write a three-to-four-page comparison/ contrast essay. (Check with me if you have other interests to write on that may require a different approach.) Respond to our readings, lectures, and discussions in this 3 rd Unit overview of the ways different cultures and voices of eighteenth-century (and a few early 19C) America construct possibilities for defining “American” experience. What are their different views of American identity?
Check the dozen suggested topics below. Build a thesis statement that answers a specific aspect of the following general questions: 1) literary: how do aspects of the form (imagery, symbols, voice, storyline) build the dynamics of the content or meaning (themes); 2) historical: on issues of American identity, how do these different voices compare or contrast in content and form? That is, compare how their language use fits the purposes of their writing. Both literary and historical directions require textual examples and close reading. How does the text structure its story of America? Of nature and culture?
Of American personhood? Is the narrative or poem structured in ways that include or exclude difference or that set strong boundaries, and how does their language reflect those inclusions or exclusions? (That was various ways of putting the same general question.)
Structure Try for a well-structured essay, with 1) an intro paragraph that sets up a context for the onesentence thesis statement typed in bold toward the end of the paragraph (= deductive structure; or if you want to try inductive structure, put the bold-font thesis statement in the final paragraph); 2) a set of body paragraphs that explain and give examples, drawing on textual citations, to support the thesis; and 3) a short concluding paragraph that does more than repeat the intro, suggesting other directions or implications of the thesis (which would first show up here in the inductive approach). This clear structure does not mean that the prose has to be stiff. Be as lively or wacky as you want, as well as rigorous in your critical thinking. There is room in literary criticism for personal response as well as critical analysis.
Logistics I will edit, grade, and respond to your paper online. NB: be sure to put the exact spelling of this heading, 210 Your Last Name Essay 1
, as your email’s subject line. Because of the overload in my inbox, I cannot guarantee that you will get credit for your online work unless you make this your subject line. To read my editing responses, be sure to view my Word.doc attachment of your edited paper in
Print Layout by clicking that option under the View Menu. If you are having trouble with the electronic aspects of this assignment—or any other aspects—please talk with me.
Required -- Write a short self-evaluation at the end of the electronic paper file (after the Works Cited): how did your writing process go; what do you feel are the paper’s strengths and weaknesses; and what might you change about the paper if you only had the time?
Refer to the guidelines handout for writing and grading criteria.
Look for specific passages that reflect your larger ideas, and quote those passages as you develop your thesis. (Thus in-text citations and a Works Cited are required.) Remember to use oodles of citations from the texts, shaped by your commentary. See Diana Hacker’s A Pocket Style Manual for proper MLA in-text citation and bibliographic form, or you are welcome to use the standard format from another discipline of your major

(e.g., social sciences or physical sciences), as long as you are consistent. (See the Diana Hacker MLA guide in the bookstore under ENLT 000.)
Format The essay should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins, in type of no less than 10pt. An optional cover page with your name, the course, the date, and the assignment is ok (to add space to the essay pages). Include an original title. Again, the essay should include short, direct quotations from the texts to support your thesis. Plenty of quotations are welcome toward close reading. Use MLA format for in-text citations. A final page should include a Works Cited, also in exact MLA format.
Due Friday, November 11, by email to david.moore@umontana.edu
. Send it to me as a Word.doc attachment. Note: Send only two file attachments. The Essay, Works Cited, Self-Evaluation, and any
Extra Credit must all be included in one cyber file. Unless you give me hard copies of rough stuff, the rough drafts, peer edits, and writer’s checklist make up the other file. Keep a hard copy of the essay for yourself for backup, but you do not need to give me one. Again, to help make sure your email isn’t lost in cyberspace, be sure to use this exact wording for your Subject line: 210 YourLastName Essay 1.
The paper will be graded on form and content , with an average of the two. Form includes clarity and style, grammar and spelling, bibliographic format, other mechanics of the presentation, plus paragraph topic sentences, transitions, and paragraph coherence and development. Content includes a singlesentence, arguable thesis focusing, again, on textual analysis with supporting logic and examples, plus range and depth of argument, originality, complexity, and awareness of opposing views.
In any writing task, all the elements are immediately in play, so they all count, though I will give you feedback where your needs are greatest. Be sure to go over and hand in the Writer’s Checklist, be sure to proofread and/or get help with proofreading, and please read carefully through the following more detailed guidelines.
More thesis statement guidelines (+ see handouts): Whether you start or end with these three key steps to building a thesis, be sure you do them as part of this short-essay exercise: 1) narrow the topic, 2) make a clear assertion about it, and 3) briefly preview or outline the discussion. Note that a thesis is more focused than a topic as it explains what you think about the topic. A thesis assertion in literary analysis does more than describe: it analyzes a textual dynamic. It shows not only what , but how , why , or so what about a topic as it works in the text
. Check the draft thesis by asking at least two questions: “is it focused on textual analysis” and “is it debatable?” i.e., if the debatable opposite or negation of the thesis is a nonissue, then the thesis probably needs to assert a more specific analysis that would be arguable. So be careful not to just summarize the piece of literature. Instead explain to a fellow student—who has read this chosen fiction or poetry—some aspect of how it works.
To be sure that your thesis is built on an analytical assertion, rather than on descriptive summary, your essay should go beyond a book report into a process of separating out parts and then putting them back together, that is, showing how some of those parts work dynamically to make one aspect of the story work. That’s analysis. A further stylistic and structural boost often develops if your thesis explicitly lists and also labels those parts, steps, categories, or features that you are analyzing. Another way to say this is do the work for the reader . Spell it out. Keep a textual focus for literary analysis in order to detail how, why, and/or so what? Look for specific passages that reflect and stimulate your larger ideas, and quote those passages as you develop your thesis. (Again a Works Cited is required.) Feel free to write both critical analysis and personal response, to be autobiographical, to discuss the reader as well as the text – as long as you tie the discussion closely and critically to textual passages. Remember to draw on plenty of citations from the texts, shaped by your commentary.

Combine, select from, and/or customize the following topics to fit your own interests. Strive for close reading of particular textual passages. In some questions, I’ve made suggestions for examples which focus on particular writers, but you can apply almost any question to almost any of the writings. If you like, you can shape any question as a comparison/ contrast between two writers. Pick any of these ways to generate and focus your topic.
In addition to the questions below, you may build from the discussion question handouts any question that relates to ways that these voices offer examples of or exceptions to the colonial binary or the nexus of exchange as options for relations.
1. Consider taking seriously Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” What can you find of value in his sermon? Remember that the young Edwards went a long time before his conversion, that he had been genuinely terrified at the threat of sudden death in his fit of illness, and that he was genuinely delighted to be spared. Edwards is interpreting the natural fact of the occurrence of sudden deaths as a providential sign, which he then goes on to use as an argument to motivate a certain class of the individuals in the audience to adopt a certain behavior. He sought meaning in his experience through the religious discourse of his era. Is there any way that his discourse can translate into the 21 st
century?
Consider comparison/contrast with Benjamin Franklin or Olaudah Equiano.
2. John Woolman, as a Quaker and as an individual, defied many of the conventional views of his day and was willing to stand up and take the heat for the things he believed in. Many of the issues he brings up still exist today but in different, more subtle, forms. Social injustices, bigotry, and poverty are, unfortunately, still very much with us today. Take some passages from Woolman, explain their significance for his time, and for ours, looking at specific historical circumstances. How would Woolman speak today about personal responsibility for social injustice? Consider comparison/contrast with
Olaudah Equiano.
3. Considering Woolman’s Quaker sense of “inner light” and Edwards’ more Puritan sense of “original sin,” how do these very different theologies play out in American identity? Where do the sense of optimism and individual striving for perfection in Crevecoeur and/or Franklin’s writings place them in relation to those different theologies?
4. Consider how selections from Unit 2 reflect on American national identity in terms of race, class, and gender definitions of who is the “American Self” and who is the “American Other.” How do specific passages from the readings map the possibilities of individual choices in the “New World” for blacks, whites, or Indians, rich or poor, men or women? Be sure to narrow the topic through specifics in the texts you choose.
5. Consider some themes in Crevecoeur in his definitions of the American character – the work ethic; the responsibility of the individual; anti-intellectualism; the farmer as a prototype of the American character; the treatment of slaves; the view of new immigrants and their ethnicity; escape from civilization.
Compare one or more of these values to Ben Franklin’s contributions toward creation of an American national identity, such as the shift from religion to enlightenment rationalism; trust in empirical science; and trust in the story of the “self-made man.” Use specific passages to analyze these trends.
6. Discuss how Jefferson’s language of equality may be fulfilled or denied in Equiano’s narrative or any other of the readings in this unit.

7. Analyze Patriot and Loyalist Songs in terms of how the personal emotional force of the language might be powered by political and economic factors working through those lyrics.
8. Compare the poetry of Freneau to the non-fiction of Jefferson or Franklin. What are similar and different themes, and how does their different use of language and genre affect those themes? For instance, how does Jefferson’s non-fiction approach to a discussion of slavery and its inequities differ from Freneau’s poetic approach to slavery? Are their different messages attributable in any way to their different forms?
9. Consider comparisons and contrasts between one or two of the African American writers and any of the others in this unit, exploring their views on religion, or national identity, or any issues of social justice.
10. Discuss the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley in light of writings on race by one of the other authors in this unit, e.g. Woolman, Jefferson, Franklin, Equiano, or Apess.
11. Compare the voices of Native American and African American writers in this unit. How are their themes and forms similar and different? For instance, in discussions of white racism, how do Apess and
Equiano use their language? Where do they place themselves as narrator in relation to questions of race?
How does each construct himself as an “authority” on the subject that they author with their words?
12. In this unit we have discussed rhetorical strategies of “mastering the master’s discourse” by which women, minorities, and lower-class whites have sought to make their voices heard. Writers such as
Franklin, Jefferson, Warren, Equiano, and Wheatley have summoned the different rhetorics of religious discourse, of classical philosophy, of civil lawmaking, of pastoral romance, and of epigrammatic didacticism, among others, to express their messages of human rights, their moral instruction, their philosophical contemplations, etc. Choose two writers from our unit, select specific lines from their writing, and compare and contrast how they utilize specific discourses to convey their specific purposes.
Be sure to map their larger political or cultural projects, and then show how their language, their specific diction, works toward those projects. Consider comparing and contrasting not only their strategies, but their different effects, successes, and failures, in regard to their specific audiences.
Extra credit: In no more than two pages, define and discuss any of our themes of colonial ideology; colonial fallacies; binary vs. nexus relations; representations of race, class, and gender; or another focus that caught your attention so far, either in historical context or in relation to present-day issues.