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EN115 Spring 2007—English Composition
Essay Number Two
Due Friday, March 9, 12:00 noon, my office (215 Miller Library).
Extra Office Hours Friday March 2 10:30-2:30
Mar. 2nd Afternoon Hours By Appointment Only
Write a 6 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(s) you’re writing about, however, and who it’s written
by to get started.
The same rules apply as on the first essay, so remember once more that
a good essay:
1. Establishes clear terms for argument and an interesting,
arguable thesis.
2. Has a clear topic sentence for each paragraph
3. Develops and proves its thesis in steps: within each
paragraph, and in the connection of each paragraph with the next.
4. Uses varied sentence beginnings, generally, for good style.
5. Uses 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.
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, as demonstrated below, including a Works Cited page at the end
(see example). The best way to learn this is simply to copy the format
used by someone else correctly (me most of the time). MLA citation
format is described fully in Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference (340348). For the Works Cited page, I will be very happy if you use
<Easybib.com>, a site that’s free and enables you to produce a Works
Cited page that’s close enough for horseshoes, and for me.
The conventions for citing poetry ask you to indicate line breaks with
a slash, as follows: “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. When quoting four lines or more, indent
five spaces and block quote. You must comment extensively, however, on
such a long quotation to justify it.
1. Write a six-page, double-spaced essay on Flannery O’Connor’s
“Good Country People:” construct an argument about how different
characters—the way they’re portrayed and speak— symbolize
different levels of language and structuring experience. What
does the “ugliest name in any language” and the difference
between “Joy” and Hulga” symbolize in the story? (433). How is
Mrs. Hopewell’s perspective and mode of expression different, and
to what effect? What other positions appear in the story, and how
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do they navigate between, use, change, or respond to these levels
of language? Why? Make sure your thesis paragraph defines the
problem and its terms fully; it may be useful to use your thesis
to define which characters you will discuss, and how they develop
your initial problem.
2. Write a six-page, double-spaced essay on William Carlos
Williams poem, “Spring and All,” and/or “The Widow’s Lament in
Springtime.”and O’Connor’s “Good Country People” by reading them
as examining the problem of clichéd language: that is, stale,
formulaic forms of expression that distance people from the
complexity of experience or its difficulties. First, define the
problem of clichéd or empty language as it is represented in each
work: what difficulties does it cause? What threatens or opens up
clichéd language in each work? Why? In what ways does the
challenge to cliché develop in each work?
3. Write a six-page essay on Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird;” define an initial position that
symbolizes high language in the imagery and language of the poem,
and how dialect or common speech appears at the start. After this
definition of terms: come up with a thesis that explains the
different changes that each level of language undergoes in the
poem, and why. What different perspectives emerge from the
symbols of eloquent speech as the poem progresses? How does it
envision, confront, or relate to the blackbird differently as the
poem progresses? How, in turn, does the blackbird as symbol of
dialect or common language change as the poem continues? Why? Is
there a middle position between the two in “Thirteen Ways”? Why
or why not?
4. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen
Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” both contrast different levels of
diction and language; elegant speech and words that represent
dialect, more natural, or less formal and reputable language
appear in each. Write a six-page, typed, double-spaced essay that
argues a difference between the way Stevens and relates common,
everyday language to what he calls “euphony,” and how Whitman
thinks symbolizes the same divide.
You might want to begin your essay with by quoting McWhorter on
“dialect” and its meanings before defining your thesis on the
poems. In the body of your essay, come up with a paragraph
structure and order that logically develops and argues your
thesis without jumping around, and in a clear, connected way.
4. Come up with a thesis on Stevens “Thirteen Ways” and one other
work we’ve read, talk to me about it, and write your essay.
For all questions: Don’t be afraid to read closely, to use outside
sources that you cite (on reserve, Miller Library, and on the shelves.
Please don’t use on-line citations aside from dictionaries yet or
internet sources for this paper). Do try to have paragraphs that forms
units or argument based on your thesis, that use evidence carefully,
and that connect with one another. ,
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Remember the indentation after the first line, as demonstrated in
the sample Works Cited list below:
Works Cited
Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference, Fifth Edition. Boston/New York:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
McWhorter, John. The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. New
York: Harper/Perennial, 2003.
Stevens, Wallace. "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Literature
and its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and
Drama. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 772-3..
Whitman, Walt. "’From 'Song of Myself.'" Literature and its Writers: A
Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Ann
Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston/New York: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2004. 948-951.
Wallace Stevens Books on Reserve
Vendler, Helen. On Extended Wings: Wallace Stevens’ Longer Poems.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1969. See pp. 75-79.
Litz, A. Walton. Introspective Voyager: The Poetic Development of
Wallace Stevens. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. See pp.
64-69.
Bloom, Harold. Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 1976. See pp. 105-107.
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