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EN115C—Spring 2007
English Composition
Essay Number One
Due (215 Miller Library) 12:00 Noon Friday Feb. 16th
Place in Plastic Holder on Wall Opposite Door
Assignment
Write a 3 pp. typed, double-spaced essay on one of the following
questions. Remember: your essay has to have an arguable thesis in a
thesis paragraph that’s long enough to define the terms you will argue.
Usually, quotations aren’t necessary in a thesis paragraph: you do need
to say what work you’re writing about, however, and who it’s written by
to get started.
A good, arguable thesis defines clear, arguable terms from the material
and takes a clear and intelligent stand on how those terms develop: a
good thesis thus leads up to but doesn’t boil down to a single
sentence. Most of the time, the thesis paragraphs you’ve written before
college aren’t long enough for critical essays you do here (see
handout).
It’s also the case that a very good thesis doesn’t have to answer each
part of the essay question. You can: but essay questions are just as
often written to provoke you into thought of your own, defining your
own problem differently, and taking a good stand on just part of what’s
given to get you going. You won’t be graded down for “not answering
part of the question.” Your essay needs to:
1. Establish clear terms for argument and an interesting,
arguable thesis. It has terms and an outcome.
2. Use a clear topic sentence for each paragraph
3. Develop and prove its thesis in logical, supported connection:
within each paragraph, and in the connection of each paragraph
with the next.
4. Use varied sentence beginnings, generally, for good style.
5. Use evidence: each paragraph after the first needs to cite
evidence—the poem, or the essay— to develop its idea with
examples. You have to analyze what you quote while sustaining the
flow and connection of the paragraph.
6. Use effective diction (word choice), and sentence length.
7. Make effective use of paragraphs as developing, logical units
of thought.
And You Must:
1. Use the Checklist on pp. 1755-6 of Literature and its Writers.
2. Make sure your essay has, at the top: A title, your name,
date, and the class section (115D).
Citation Format
we’re using the MLA (Modern Languages Association) format. Your essay
must cite the text of the poem, and have a Works Cited page at the end:
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see the example at the end of this assignment. The best way to learn
citation format is to follow an example: go to the sample essay in
Charters and Charters, pp. 1796-1801. There is also a long section in
Hacker, A Writer’s Reference , “MLA in-text citations, beginning on p.
370. You can also use www.easybib.com and apply the results
intelligently.
Examples and Information: the paragraph you are reading will
contain examples of correct citation format while describing the
process. The idea is to use the minimum information necessary in the
parenthetical citation that will enable a reader to find the source. To
wit: though McWhorter appears only once in my works cited, I could
quote his phrase about the “social evaluations” of different levels of
language properly this way in this sentence (60). The conventions for
citing poetry ask you to indicate line breaks with a slash, as in this
quotation from Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: “I, now thirty-seven years
old in perfect health begin,/Hoping to cease not until death” (8-9).
Line numbers are given parenthetically as indicated. Here, because I’ve
mentioned the author and name of the poem, only the line numbers need
to go in the in-text citation. But “when you quote more than four typed
lines of prose or more than three lines of poetry, set off the
quotation by indenting it one inch (or ten spaces) from the left
margin” (Hacker 364). For instance, here is a properly cited quotation
from “Song of Myself” that continues for more than three lines:
Listener up there! What have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, I stay only a minute
longer.) ( Whitman 58-60).
After a long quotation, you must analyze its specific or you are using
filler and writing a bad paper! [For example] That the speaker calls to
the “listener up there” suggests he is speaking to someone elevated,
both physically and culturally: his figurative position is down on the
street with the people. The phrase the “sidle of evening” points to
nighttime activity that may even be dangerous, or socially
unacceptable—since “sidle” can mean, according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, a “sidelong or oblique movement” (“Sidle”). The fact that
the speaker wants the more elevated listener to “confide” tells us
that….”
Topics
1. Write an essay that explores the symbolic meaning of “grass” in
Whitman’s “From Song of Myself.” In your thesis (first
paragraph): define what aspects of language—specifically—“grass”
symbolizes for Whitman. To what extent does it resemble dialects
or the vernacular? To what extent does it represent or connect
with a more prestigious standard language? At the end of your
paragraph, say what other meanings the symbolism of grass opens
up in other sections of the poem: i.e. how do images of the body,
or of objects, or of the speaker’s interactions with the others
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or images of himself, connect with grass and its meanings? After
your thesis, prove your idea with well-argued paragraph units
that develop one idea at a time and that explain your idea
carefully from evidence. If you like, you can quote sections from
McWhorter if they help you.
2. Write an essay on the speaker’s self-description in Whitman’s
“From Song of Myself:” in your thesis paragraph, and define his
attitude toward the masses or common people and their speech.
What does the speaker value in his “brother’s and sisters” and
how does he describe common people and their speech positively?
(43). What negative qualities does the speaker associate with
common language, or the “barbaric yawp,” or does he see others
associating with it? (71). After your definitions, say how the
idea of common language develops in the sections of the poem, and
prove your answer with careful analysis, good writing, and
discussion of evidence.
3. Write on essay on Ezra Pound’s essay, “What I Feel About Walt
Whitman.” In your thesis paragraph, define what Pound sees as
repulsive, negative, or lacking in Whitman’s language—what is
“disgusting” (1124) to Pound about Whitman’s style? Define as
well how Pound’s idea of a “classically finished work” or the
“educated man” differs from Whitman’s voice, and why. What
aspects of Whitman’s style does Pound view as “genius?” (1124).
Does Pound believe aspects of Whitman can be included in, or
become part of, high culture or standard language? Argue your
answer in well-organized paragraphs that quote from the text; you
can analyze passages from Whitman later in your essay to support
your argument.
4. Write an essay on a topic of your own choosing; discuss it with
me in office hours first to make sure it is doable.
Works Cited
Charters, Ann, and Samuel Charters, eds. Literature and Its Writers: A
Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 4th ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
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Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference, Sixth Edition. Boston/New York:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007.
McWhorter, John. The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. New
York: Harper/Perennial, 2003.
Pound, Ezra. "What I Feel About Walt Whitman." Charters and Charters
1124-5.
"Sidle." Oxford English Dictionary. 12 Feb. 2007 <http://0dictionary.oed.com.library.colby.edu/>.
Whitman, Walt. "’From 'Song of Myself.'" Charters and Charters 1063-65.