Instructions: Plan, draft, revise, and edit an original essay on the topic below. Your essay should be between 750 and 1,250 words, with the sweet spot being about 1,000. Your overall aim should be to exhaust your thesis in approximately 3-5 pages of writing.
Your thesis should meet the significance criteria (third level of the Thesis Pyramid) described by the University of California composition program. It should reference a minimum of four sources and a maximum of six, including the two primary works that you are comparing. Secondary sources must be drawn from the general or scholarly categories. Tabloid or sensationalist sources are almost always inappropriate to college-level research, as are most tertiary sources, including Wikipedia. Be sure to check your sources for reliability using the methods you learned in our Information Literacy Series.
Use the Scoring Rubric in the next module page as a final checklist during revision.
Submit your finished essay before midnight on Friday, June 2.
Writing Topic: Compare The Penelopiad to The Odyssey. How does Atwood’s novel inform your reading of Homer’s epic poem and to what effect? In developing your thesis, you will analyze, interpret, and compare sources.
Resources: The OWL (On-Line Writing Lab), sponsored by Purdue University, is the best on-line writing resource I know. It contains instructions in process, format, and examples. Use the left margin of the web site to navigate through the writing process, as needed, and to learn the MLA method.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/
