General Purpose:
Students will independently read a novel and develop a literary analysis using quoted evidence from the text to support the argument. Students are also expected to conduct scholarly research and use a minimum of two secondary sources to support and strengthen the argument. All secondary sources should be scholarly in nature and accessed through library databases (literary criticism from academic journals) or from literary essay collections in the library.
Due Dates: Rough Draft due for peer review on 11/1; Final Draft due 11/22
Length Requirement: 5-6 pages, standard MLA format
Prompt Choices (These are meant to help you think of a topic to write about. There is nothing magical about them. Change them to suit the argument you wish to make if you like. You may also propose your own prompt for approval.)
Suggested Prompts for the 19th Century novel choices:
Explore the novel in the context of 19th century America. Does it address issues that are uniquely American? Does it seem to be challenging commonly held conceptions of the period? Is it providing something new to the American literary canon at the time, and if so, what?)
The concept of wilderness has always held an outsized role in the American psyche. Does the wilderness play a symbolic role in the work, and if so, what does it seem to represent? How does it serve to develop meaning in the work?
Several of these novels sympathetically depict women, enslaved people, and native people. How does your novel provide complex social commentary on gender, race, religion, or other societal issues?
Which character would you identify as the moral center of the novel? How is that character used to develop a complex theme in the work?
If your novel includes a morally ambiguous character, try to determine whether this character is ultimately good or bad. How does this character serve to create meaning in the novel?
Select a minor character in the novel and explore how that character impacts the work in a significant way
