Racism and Friendship
For your final essay, you will develop an original argument about one or more of the primary works on the syllabus. Your paper should be thesis-driven and use direct textual evidence (close-reading and quotation analysis) to support your points. Further, you must incorporate at least two secondary sources into your essay to help further support and develop your argument. You are free to use the secondary sources from the syllabus or sources from outside of the syllabus.
In this essay, you will continue to develop your literary analysis and close-reading skills. Reading closely means developing a deep understanding and a precise interpretation of a quotation, passage, scene, or image. This type of analysis moves beyond summary and begins by analyzing on a micro level and from there connects to the themes and ideas evoked and/or implied by the passage in relation to larger themes of the literary work. Essentially, in the body of your essay you will support and prove your argument by analyzing various quotations, scenes, images, etc.
In order to thoughtfully and thoroughly attend to this assignment, the target word count for this assignment is approximately 1800-2000 words (roughly 7-8 pages).
General guidelines and expectations:
Your writing will be graded for both content and style, and thus, should be concise and thoughtful, and grammatically, mechanically, and syntactically elegant. Your essay must be typed, in Times New Roman font, 12-point size with numbered pages. At the top of the first page, include your name, the due date, the course name and section, and my name in four consecutive, single-spaced lines; the remainder of the essay should be double-spaced. After your last paragraph please include your essay word count. For an example of the expected essay format, please see the syllabus. Additionally, papers and citations should always follow MLA format. For assistance, please consult The Bedford Handbook, the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue, or any one of the dozens of other available online resources.
Essays must be submitted via Blackboard (Microsoft Word, PDF, or Pages file formats only—MS Word .doc or .docx preferred).
*I strongly encourage you to discuss your plans for your final paper with me. Some of the ways I can help are as follows: brainstorm ideas, develop thesis, develop and/or locate more evidence, come up with an outline and/or tips for overall structure and organization, and more.
Note: Advisement for final papers can happen when you’re in the planning, drafting, or revising stage of the writing process (I’m happy to speak with you more than once at different stages in the process) and will happen in the form of one-on-one conferences via Zoom. If you would like to consult about your final paper, either sign up for a meeting slot using the Office Hours Google Doc or email me about scheduling a time to meet.