Abstracts
Analytical Essays
 Sample 1 (with student work)
 Sample 2
 Sample 3
 Sample 4 (with student work)
 Sample 5
o Essay 1 is topic #6 (PDF 1)
o Essay 2 is topic #2 (PDF 2)
o Essay 4 is topic #9 (PDF 3)
o Essay 5 is topic #4 (PDF 3)
o Essay 6 is topic #4 (PDF 3)
Annotated Bibliographies
 Sample 1
 Sample 2
Argumentative Essays
 Sample 1
 Sample 2 (with student work)
Close Readings
 Sample 1
 Sample 2 (with student work)
 Sample 3
 Sample 4
 Sample 5 (with student work)
Comparative Analyses
 Sample 1
 Sample 2
 Sample 3
Oral Presentations
 Sample 1 (21L.002)
 Sample 2
 Sample 3
 Sample 4
 Sample 5
 Sample 6
 Sample 7
 Sample 8

Sample 9
Personal Narratives
Research Papers
 Sample 1
Summaries
 Sample 1
Close Readings

“Select one passage of a half page to a page or so from the story or
novel that holds some charge or meaning or questions for you and
that you think will bear up under closer study. Approach the passage
through a close study of what this microcosm of the larger work
signifies about character, actions, setting and of course, language
(style, vocabulary, images, patterns of syntax, grammatical marks –
any given passage will have much to discover)”
(http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-003-reading-fiction-fall2008/assignments/paper_1.pdf).
Student Sample Paper 1
Student Sample Paper 2
Student Sample Paper 3

“Write a 3-5-page paper about one of the following poems: Stevens’
‘The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm; Hopkins’ ‘Pied
Beauty’; Donne’s ‘Holy Sonnet 14.’ You have been noticing such
elements as tense/time, pronoun/point of view, sentences (the
grammatical structures) and such other things as repetitions and
patterns of syntax and of emphasis, shapes, parts, abstract/concrete
(the rhetorical structures)”
(http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-004-reading-poetryspring-2009/assignments/MIT21l_004s09_assn02_paper2.pdf).
Student Sample Paper

“One assigned close reading of a passage from Medea, 5-pp. This will
be revised” (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-005introduction-to-drama-fall-2008/assignments/).
Student Sample Paper
Research Papers

(broad) “The final paper will be a research paper on a riot, strike, or
conspiracy not discussed in regular class meetings, but which applies
the analytic techniques developed there”
(http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-104j-riots-strikes-andconspiracies-in-american-history-fall-2010/assignments/).
Student Sample Paper

(broad) “The final obligation in this subject is the preparation of a
final paper, about 10 pages in length, ‘on a notable historical work
that was not assigned as required reading,’ as the syllabus puts it
(http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-105-american-classicsspring-2006/assignments/).
Sample Student Paper