Always verify modifications of these guidelines against the actual assignment posted in WebVista.

Assignment: Write a 500 word essay on a brief passage from the literary text we’re studying. In the essay, you are to speculate on the “cultural” concerns that are reflected in the passage you’re selected. The passage (in the actions depicted, the language used to describe those actions, or the attitudes or qualities of character & characterization and the language used) is to be treated as “symptomatic” of the cultural concern. This is a speculation on your part, but make the case as well as you can, using evidence you’ve gleaned from the passage.

Format: Use the MLA Handbook. (The Writing Center has a handout that outlines the basics; 318 SFH).

Contents: These guidelines are not a recipe. They are designed only to tell you what rhetorical "work" the paper must do. You should organize the material so that it is as effective as you can make it.

A. Opening Paragraphs
• Identify the passage you’ve select by author and title and location in the work
• Identify the cultural concern you feel the passage is addressing (this is your central claim or argument).

B. Supporting Paragraphs
• Demonstrate, by citing and analyzing events and/or language in the passage, how the passage reveals a cultural concern

C. Concluding Paragraph
• Conclude the paper by asserting (if one can) the importance of either the cultural concern, the pervasiveness of that concern in the entire text, or
• Conclude by explaining how the strategy for presenting the cultural concern appears (or does not seem to appear) in other portions of the text.

Relative Lengths: Section A is 10%; B is 70%; C is 10%.