McQuade, Donald. The Harper Single Volume American Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 1999. Print.
Your focus will be on one literary element: plot, point of view, character, setting, symbols, irony, theme, or some meaningful combination of two or more of these elements. In a short paper of two pages, the theme must be closely focused. Next, decide upon a suitable topic by rereading the work and taking note of the various literary elements and deciding upon one especially striking element.
The next stage is gather information. Scan the story or poem again and list all pertinent information on the element you wish to write about. With this list, organize the information. Develop a thesis statement, which is simply a hypothesis based upon the information on the organized list.
Begin to write the paper using your listed elements as examples to support your thesis statement. Use pertinent quotations from the work to support your examples and document, but I want more analysis than quotation. Keep in mind that literature is a living, on going phenomenon; therefore, your paper will be written in present tense. Also, because the paper is about a specific other, it will be in third person.
Format: The paper should be two pages. The title will tell the “aboutness” of the paper. It may include, but will not be the same as, the title of the short story or poem.
