What to do?
1. Read closely the story. Pay attention to e ideas that are being presented. Think about the characters’ development and the author’s writing technique. What might be considered interesting, unusual, or important?
2. Take note of events that reflect the immigrant experience in the text.
3. In your paper, investigate how the ideas of displacement, existential rootlessness, nostalgia, and quest of identity are explored in the text.
4. There is no need to write a synopsis of the story. Your paper must include the following parts:
A. Introductory Paragraph
o The thesis statement should typically appear in your first paragraph and is usually embedded at the end of this introductory paragraph. Underline your thesis statement.
o You must make clear, full reference to the literary work and author you are writing about somewhere in your introductory paragraph.
o Include any relevant background information that your reader might need to understand your overall purpose.
B. Body/Developmental Paragraphs
o Each subsequent paragraph after the introduction must include topic sentences, and these topic sentences, as well as the content of each paragraph, must support the thesis statement.
o Topic sentences (usually the first sentence in each paragraph):
1. Relate the details of the paragraph to your overall thesis.
2. Tie the details of the paragraph together (paragraph unity).
o A solid literary analysis contains an explanation of your ideas and evidence from the text for the purpose of supporting your ideas. Textual evidence consists of specific details, direct quotations, summaries, and/or paraphrases.
o The substance of each of your body paragraphs will be the explanations, summaries, paraphrases, specific details, and direct quotations you need to support and develop the more general statement you have made in your topic sentence.
C. Conclusion
The conclusion should tie together your essay’s argument and ideas. Some approaches to the conclusion are as follows: restating the thesis (in different words) and expanding on its importance, summarizing the essay’s main points and pondering their significance, commenting on the literary work from a different perspective. The conclusion should not introduce a new topic that has not been touched on in your
essay.
