Literary Analysis Paper Assignment Sheet
For the major paper in this course, you will write an argument-focused, or thesis-driven, literary analysis paper. Your paper must use one primary source (short story) from our textbook and two additional secondary sources found through research. Your secondary sources will be articles written by other scholars about the short story that you have chosen to study.
Your literary analysis paper must be focused around a main argument or thesis that makes an interpretation of your primary source (short story). You will defend and develop your thesis in the body of the paper with evidence from both your primary and secondary sources.
To devise your thesis, your literary analysis paper must interpret the short story that you have chosen through the lens of one of the six approaches listed below. Choose the approach that makes the most sense in terms of your interests and the content of the story that you have selected to write about. The approaches described below offer guidance on what kinds of question(s) your thesis might attempt to answer in relation to the specific approach that you choose
Possible Approaches: These are suggested approaches you might take for analyzing your chosen short story in this paper. If you would like to propose a different approach, contact Kelly.
1. A reading of the representations of class relations in one of the short stories in our textbook. Your thesis should answer one of these questions: What does this story say about poverty and wealth? What might this story or its implied author be saying about relationships between the classes?
2. A reading of the representations of gender roles in one of the short stories in our textbook. Your thesis should answer one of these questions: What is this story saying about the rights and roles of men and women in the time period and place in which it was written? What is this story or its implied author saying about relationships between men and women?
3. A reading of the representations of race and/or race relations in one of the short stories in our textbook. Your thesis should answer one of these questions: What is this story saying about race and/or racism? What is this story or its implied author saying about race relations in the time and place in which the story is set?
4. An interpretation of the theme of one of the short stories in our textbook. Your thesis should answer one of these questions: What is the main theme of this story? How does the author weave this theme into his or her story?
5. A biographical reading of a short story in our textbook. This approach would involve researching the life of the author and making an argument about how the short story reflects some aspect of the author’s life. Your thesis should answer this question: Which specific aspects of these stories reflect which specific parts of the author’s life?
6. An analysis of how the author uses her/is writing style to convey the story’s theme. Your thesis should answer this question: How does the author use things like symbol, tone, irony, dialect, metaphor, simile, and/or diction to convey the story’s main theme? (Choose just one or two aspect of writing style to focus on in your argument.)
1. What are the title and author’s name of the short story that you plan to analyze in your Literary Analysis Paper?
2. Which of the five approaches that are listed on the Literary Analysis Paper Assignment Sheet do you plan to use in analyzing the story that you have chosen? (Note: you can decide to change your approach later, if necessary.)
3. Please list the following information about the article you have found that was written by another author about your chosen short story:
a. The article’s title:
b. The title of the Journal that the article was printed in:
c. The name of the author who wrote the article:
d. The title of the database on which you found the article (Literature Resource Center or Academic Search Premiere):
Note: If you intend to use more than one article as sources in your paper, please list this same information below for any additional articles
Formatted correctly in MLA documentation style and include a complete and correct Works Cited page.