WR139 W Essay 1: Analytic Essay
The Analytic Essay is the first of our two major writing assignments this quarter, and is
worth 25% of your grade. We will treat the paper as a process by conducting a thesis
workshop, discussing writing strategies along the way, and holding rough draft
conferences at the start of Week 5. I encourage you to take advantage of my office hours to
get some extra feedback while you’re working on the paper at any stage (vague idea, thesis,
exploratory outline, or partial/full draft).
The paper asks you to write an informative, thesis-driven analysis of The Rise of Silas
Lapham using a secondary text as a critical lens with which to analyze the literary text.
One way to think about it is to say that this critical perspective should give you an "angle"
from which to analyze your literary text. For example, a student might choose to use some
aspect of Peterson’s concept of cultural omnivores/univores to assess how Tom Corey’s
social flexibility (WHAT) compares or contrasts with the Lapham and Corey families’ more
structured tastes (HOW) to demonstrate the increasingly fluid social boundaries of late19th-century American society (WHY).
It might turn out that the critical context really helps to explain the primary text you are
examining, or, alternatively, the primary text might reveal flaws within the critic’s
theory/theories—perhaps something about how Bourdieu’s theory of economic and
cultural capital fails to predict or govern some aspect of Howells’ text. Feel free to openly
criticize a theoretical point of view you disagree with, but be careful to ensure sure your
focus is on analyzing the texts themselves. Don't make any claims you can't back up with
quotable evidence.
GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT COMPARISON/CONTRAST ESSAYS:
On the most basic level your essay will be comparing and contrasting two texts, which
means that your essay should not be a mere listing of points of comparison, but should
make an argument.
Structure: In order to use one text as a lens for the other, start with a small amount of
quoted material from the critical text in the beginning—to set up your argument—and then
spend the rest of the essay showing how the argument you derived from that critical text
can either help us to better understand something about the fictional work (from which the
large number of examples come) or how the fictional work challenges the theories/
concepts of the “lens” text. Ask yourself what we can learn from reading these two texts
together rather than individually, and see what results from reading each in terms of the
other. For example, can looking at Howells’ novel from Mark Greif’s critical perspective tell
us something new about The Rise of Silas Lapham? Or might Howells’ ‘teach’ Greif
something?
In order to make your comparison, you will need to address to text you choose on the level
of form or rhetoric as well as that of content or theme. Don’t just paraphrase the quote but
think about HOW it’s saying it by thinking about whether the following contribute to your
thesis’s significance: authorial voice (choosing a particular word/style of diction),
the structure of a story or sentence, the use of different literary devices ( tropes,
metaphors, motifs), etc. When discussing form, always be specific. For instance, "tone" or
"diction" are very broad terms (they apply equally to every text ever written!) and need to
be developed.
GUIDELINES:
1) Length is 5-6 pages. Papers should be formatted according to MLA style: 1” margins,
double-spacing, 12-pt Times New Roman font, and page numbers in the top right
corner. Include a heading with your name, my name, the course, and the date. Closely
read the grading rubric and read my tips on paper writing and MLA format for quote
integration, correct citation, etc on the “Writing” tab of our course website. You may
use APA essay formatting if that is what you are most comfortable with, but only if your
use is consistent.
2) The essays will be evaluated based on thesis, analysis, structure, quotations,
language and academic ethos.
3) Papers should have a two-part academic title (not “Essay #1”). See the Academic
Title PPT for ideas.
4) Your introduction should introduce key information (key terms, audience, context,
purpose etc), ending with a clear “what, how, why” thesis. See Thesis PPT for ideas.
5) The paper should have multiple well-defined paragraphs with clear topic and
concluding sentences. Your paper’s concluding paragraph should have a reflection or
extension of your argument that brings the paper to a close.
6) Your ethos should be that of a confident authority on your topic, following the
conventions (appropriate tone, MLA format) in writing for an academic audience. Your
performance during peer review will also be evaluated according to that ethos.
7) Papers must quote directly from the primary text (The Rise of Silas Lapham) and
analyze the form and content of the quotations—do not simply paraphrase what the
author is saying, but connect each quoted example to some or all aspects of the WHAT,
HOW, and WHY of your thesis. If your analysis doesn’t connect to any part of your
thesis, then it has no business taking up space in your essay! Citations: for the
purposes of this class, you can cite the primary (literary) text just with a page number
(3) and the secondary (critical) text with the author’s last name and a page number
(Gibson 5). A Works Cited page is not necessary.
8) The rough draft is due on Monday 4/27 as one hard copy to submit and as a .doc or
.docx document to Turnitin.com. I will be conducting conferences all day, so that we
have a chance to discuss your draft one-on-one; sign up for your conference on EEE.
The final draft should be submitted by 1pm on Friday 5/1 as a hard copy to the
class Drop Box and Turnitin.com.