How To Help Others Read A Text
For this assignment, you will choose one text that we read this semester that you enjoyed and write your reflection of it in the form of an introduction to this text. You should imagine as a reader of your paper a future student of Early English Literature. Your objective is to help this person read the text by demonstrating its significance to English-language literature and the culture of the period that produced it. In essence, you are applying the material that you have been studying and writing about to help another reader understand why the text you have chosen matters and should be read.
You will be answering the question: What makes this text significant to twenty-first-century English readers? In answering the question, you will want to write a thesis statement that says more than why this text is interesting to you. You should instead say why this text matters as a work that reflects ideas of a particular literary period. As a guide, review any of the headnotes or introductions to the texts in your anthology.
Your essay should include one or more of the five Cultural Ideas we have been discussing and accurately identify from what period of English history the text comes:
Politics and governance
Law & justice
Commerce
Science and learning
The Arts
It should also include your own reason for the text’s significance. Keep in mind that you will need to define in your introductory paragraph any of the Cultural Ideas or your own terms as you plan on using them in the essay.
For instance, you can explain how Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale uses comedy to show the limitations of education and learning because the educated characters do not escape unharmed in the tale. You would define the Cultural Idea of education and learning and then show in the essay at least one example of how the Cultural Idea appears in it. You will want to introduce all the major characters and their significance to the plot. You do NOT want to summarize the plot, since you want your reader to read the text.
Your introduction should then have: 1. your text, 2. your Cultural Idea (or Ideas), 3. a definition of your terms, and 4. your thesis. The body paragraphs should each include one example, explain why it is significant, and how it relates to your thesis. Your conclusion should sum up your argument and end with a restatement of your thesis that answers in a sentence why someone would find this text significant enough to read.
Primary Goals:
Make a main point or a couple of related points about what you have discovered through a close reading of the text. Make sure that you use plenty of textual evidence to support your claims.
Throughout your paper, stay very close to the text, explicating or “unpacking” important meanings that might be missed at first glance. Avoid the temptation to simply paraphrase what is said in the passage. By giving close attention to the language an author uses, you can much better explain how an author achieves a specific effect or expresses a complicated idea.
Do not employ secondary sources. If you feel you must use an outside source, make sure you cite it properly. Beware of plagiarism!
Do not summarize the plot at all.
Suggested process:
Identify a text in which you are interested and why that attracts you.
Work up a definition of the Cultural Idea as you want to use it.
Read the text a few times, marking it up thoroughly to ensure that you have material to defend your position.
Think what kind of claim you can make about this text as a significant text of Early English Literature. This will be your working thesis.
Begin writing, and remember to follow your thoughts through, make transitions between your thoughts, and always support your claims with evidence from the text. Divide your essay into logical paragraphs, making transitions from one paragraph to another.
Each paragraph should answer three questions: What is the example? Why is it significant? How does it relate to my thesis? Once you answer these questions, you should go to the next paragraph.
In the conclusion, summarize your main points and refer to your thesis.
Edit and proofread your essay.
Format: Palatino font, double-spaced, unrhymed English prose; size 12; 1-inch margins on all sides. Remember to title your essay (be creative about the title!), and number the pages.
Keep your header simple: your name on the first page is sufficient.
Always use the present tense when writing about literature.
Remember that a paragraph consists of at least three sentences. Otherwise, it is not a paragraph. Unify each paragraph by one main point. Break long paragraphs into smaller ones.
This is a formal essay and therefore has to be written in a formal
Save your paper in .docx or .pdf format and submit it on Canvas. Make sure you upload your file by entering the link through the “Assignments” section.
Length: 2 pages.
Criteria for grading: a clear definition of terms (in this case, the Cultural Idea); arguable thesis statement; sufficiency of specific evidence from the text; a thesis statement consistently applied from beginning to end; clarity of writing style; the length requirement met; a clear summary statement at the end that answers the question why this text matters.
