Final Critical Essay Guidelines - Proposal & Essay
Proposal
Due date: on or before Thurs. March 29.
Title your proposal so that the work or works (or paintings) are identified.
The proposal should include the following sections & headings:
a) The Main Issue (question or problem) that you will explore.
b) The Viewpoint or Thesis that you intend to support.
c) The Relevance of the Essay. Elaborate on what you see as the relevance of your
essay – specifically, why you think the issue, question or problem that you will address is
interesting and important. How will your essay contribute to a better understanding or
enjoyment of the work? Preview how you foresee supporting your viewpoint/thesis.
Note that the proposal is a required assignment and needs to be approved before you
proceed to write the essay. An essay submitted without an approved proposal will not be
accepted or receive credit.
Essay
Due date: on or before Tue. April 17.
Because the essay is an end-of-semester assignment, the due date will be strictly
enforced. A 10% per-day late penalty will be applied to late essays. No essays will be
accepted after Thurs. April 19, the last day of spring classes.
The essay can be based on any of the assigned reading materials for the course – i.e.
any of the stories or poems.
You may choose a single work and focus on supporting an interpretation based on close
reading and analysis. Or you can choose to do a comparative analysis of one or more
works, supporting an interpretation based on an observation about parallel or overlapping
themes or approaches.
For example, the short stories by Garcia Marquez and Kafka are both based on a
fantastic (unrealistic) concept. What is different about how and why the authors use the
concept in their stories? What is thematically relevant about the difference or differences?
“Sonny’s Blues” and the “Metamorphosis” are stories that have little in common on the
surface; however, both stories deal significantly with the theme of family and family life.
How are Baldwin and Kafka’s views of family similar or different? What is thematically
relevant about the similarities or differences?
As you review ideas for the essay, consider building on issues and observations that you
developed in your portfolio assignments – perhaps sythesizing observations from
different assignments. For instance, one portfolio assignment asked you to reflect on T.
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S. Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Another assignment involved Matthew
Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Both poems to some degree deal with the theme of “love,” but
ultimately seem to be as much or more about other issues. A question about the view of
love that emerges in the two poems, its relationship and relevance to other issues and
themes that the poems deal with, can provide the basis for an effective essay.
Regardless of the work or works that you choose to write about, the point of departure for
the essay must be a meaningful and well-defined issue, question or problem. The essay
also must present a thesis – in other words, an assertion about the meaning and function
of the work that you will argue for and support.
As noted in class, in lieu of the literary essay, students may choose to do a comparative
analysis of the portraits by Goya and Ingres posted on the course web site. As with the
literary works, the portrait analysis must be based on a well-defined issue, question or
problem. For example, you could consider identifying thematic similarities that underlie
obvious differences between the two paintings.