English 1B Sperry
Rough Draft Due: Wed. Feb 20
Final Draft Due: Fri. Feb 22
Foothill College Winter 2013
Length: 1250-1500 words (4- 5 pages)
Assignment Sheet
Essay #2: Fiction Analysis
Write an essay analyzing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” The Metamorphosis “Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been,” “Angel Levine”, or “Young Goodman Brown,” using one of the
methods/topics listed below. I recommend that you type the rough draft, because this will ensure that
peer editors can read and respond to it, but both drafts must be double spaced--the final draft must be
typed and in MLA format as well--and both must be turned in for you to earn a passing grade. When
you turn in your paper, put the rough with peer review notes behind the final draft. Your paper must
have a clear thesis stated early, evidence and reasoning to support it throughout the body of the essay,
and analysis of the significance of this reading to an understanding of the story. Evidence must include
quotes and paraphrasing from the story with page numbers noted in MLA style. Include a Works Cited
page, listing your story in MLA style. Include also other sources if you do additional research and
incorporate them using MLA style as well.
TOPICS: Make sure that whichever topic you choose you are answering an interpretive question
which produces ample debate. See Handout: Questioning Levels (also posted at my website)
1. Analyze the plot, the meaning of the sequence of events in one of the stories listed above. Make
sure that in writing this essay you go out on a limb—in other words, don’t stick to facts but go to the
mysterious aspects of the text, the why for example, so that you are forced to form an opinion that needs
to be supported in your essay. Your thesis could state what happens and what the story suggests causes
these events—for example—because the question of cause is often a debatable one. In this case your
thesis would be a claim, a statement of opinion, about what happens and why. Remember to support
your claims (thesis and sub claims) with evidence, explanation and reasoning. Or you could write about
how the events change the main character or protagonist of the story or what the events reveal about this
character or what they are trying to do to the reader.
2. Analyze an important symbol or motif (series of interlinked symbols), in one of the stories. State
what you think it symbolically represents and support this claim (thesis) with evidence, explanation and
reasoning. For example: “The yellow wallpaper symbolizes
or Gregor’s
transformation represents
. It needs to be clearly stated, almost as though it were an
equation. Make sure that you use the descriptions of the object from the story, concept or image you are
analyzing to support your claim about its meaning. Remember that the way we read certain objects,
colors, figures, images as a culture is important, but even more important when you interpret literature is
how the text itself creates associations surrounding the symbol. I recommend you run your idea by me,
just to make sure you really have identified a symbol in the text. Sometimes an object is just an object,
serving a function in the text, but not a symbolic one. You can email me your ideas or discuss them
with me in class or during the break or visit me at my office.
3. Analyze an important character in one of the stories. What do the character's actions suggest
about this character's motives? How do the events or the character's past contribute to the character's
behavior. What is the basic point conveyed through or about the character in the short story you chose?
Presentation of Secondary Source
Directions for Secondary Source Presentation:
The Presentations will be 7 minutes long maximum:
1.
Summarize the reading, telling the class what it basically argues or reveals about the story
or its author.
2.
Connect this reading to the story, explaining how it influences your understanding of the
story. For example, if you were to connect Ron Carlson’s “The Something File” to “Ode to Billie Joe”
you might make statements such as: Carlson’s claim in “The Something File” that putting a frog down
the narrator’s back is “hardly flirting” made me realize that it could actually have been flirting and
caused me to pay attention to all the signs that the narrator and Billie Joe had been seen a lot together
and might therefore have been romantically involved.
3.
Critique the reading, explaining how useful and valid it is, being as specific as you possibly
can. For example, if you were to critique Ron Carlson’s “The Something File” you might say, “His
close examination of the idea that Billie Joe and the narrator of ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ threw a baby off the
bridge helped me understand that a common reading of the story when the song came out was that they
threw a baby off the bridge. It also showed us how to use real life, the text, and reasoning to interpret
texts. I became convinced that a) they didn’t throw a baby off the bridge and b) they were having some
kind of secret relationship that caused Billie Joe to jump off the bridge, perhaps because the narrator
broke up with him. (You will state your own opinion, explaining how you found the reading helpful to
your understanding of “The Yellow Wallpaper”)
The humorous tone of the reading was entertaining, but it undermined Carlson’s legitimacy in
places. For example when he questions whether the priest can identify the narrator, which bridge Billie
Joe jumped from and even whether he jumped or slipped, that isn’t particularly useful. It’s funny, but
since we are dealing with a song where the meaning is highly controlled, these questions aren’t
particularly useful. For example, even though he questions whether the narrator was really on the bridge
or not, the song suggests strongly that she was because she is silent when her mother brings up her
possible location with him and because the narrator goes there later, which strongly suggests she was the
one there with him. The pattern of questions about her being seen with him, her silence and loss of
appetite, and her visits to the bridge a year later, all strongly suggest she was somehow involved with
Billie Joe. Still, having Carlson question this helped me understand what I needed to argue in my paper.
Also, I basically agree with him that they didn’t throw a baby off the bridge.