Assignment Sheet: Short Fiction Comparison Analysis Paper

Overview: This assignment asks you to compare and analyze the themes of two of the stories we have read between Weeks 3 and 7 in ENG 102. Your goal will be to make a claim regarding some thematic connection between the two stories you selected.

You will support your claim by referring to specific examples from the stories and making logical connections from those examples back to your claim. Your final paper should be between 4-6 pages in length.

Purpose:

1. Demonstrate your ability to identify and analyze themes in short fiction.
2. Demonstrate your ability to make a written critical claim and support that claim by making logical, clear connections to relevant evidence.
3. Demonstrate your ability to closely read a story by selecting strong examples from the stories to support your claim.
4. Demonstrate your understanding of the basic elements of fiction.
5. Demonstrate your ability to write an original, effective argument using college-level academic writing.

Audience: Your audience is your instructor. That means your audience expects college-level academic writing that follows the guidelines of the assignment and is largely free of grammatical errors. It also means that your audience is very familiar with all of the stories read so far this semester and therefore does NOT need lengthy summaries or introductions to these texts.

Content Requirements:

• Claim: Your claim is your thesis statement or argument in your paper. For this assignment, your claim must be about a thematic connection you have identified between two of the stories we have read in ENG 102 between Weeks 3 and 7.
• Theme: Remember that a theme is:
  • An idea about the world.
  • The idea is expressed by a literary text.
  • The idea expressed by the literary text is important to people in general, not just a small group.

• A thematic connection means that you have identified similarities between the themes in two stories we have read between Weeks 3 and 7. Your claim must articulate what this connection is.

• Evidence: You must support your claim with evidence taken directly from the stories you are writing about—this means using direct quotations or paraphrased examples from the texts themselves. You will be expected to:
  • Identify and support themes for both stories. You may believe that the two stories you are writing about have the same theme. You may instead believe that they do not have the exact same theme, but that their themes are similar in some significant way. In either case, you will need to support the theme(s) you identify in the stories by pointing to specific examples from the text. Simply pasting a line from the story into your paper and stating that it supports your claim is NOT sufficient. You must address how and why the evidence supports your claim.
  • Build logical connections between the themes you have identified. Once you have established the themes present in the stories you are writing about, you must demonstrate how the themes are related. How do we as readers learn about the same thematic ideas in different yet significant ways in these two stories? You will again refer to specifics from the text to build these connections.
  • Acknowledge differences between the stories. Even if you believe that both stories share the same theme, there are many differences between all of the stories we have read this semester. Identify key differences and discuss how they make the themes in the stories slightly different, or how they reveal different angles on a shared theme.
  • Correctly identify significant elements of fiction. As you build your analytical paragraphs, you will find yourself referring to various elements of fiction that connect back to your identified themes. Demonstrate your understanding of these elements of fiction by using terminology accurately and explaining how their significance supports your identified themes and your overall claim.

• Conclusion: Your conclusion will tie together your argument and restate your thesis.

Common Mistakes to Avoid:

• DON’T make your claim about differences in the plot. Your claim MUST be about a thematic connection that you have identified and can support with direct examples from both stories.
• DON’T waste time and space summarizing the stories. While you will need to provide some context when introducing evidence from the texts, your paper should NOT include complete summaries of both stories. That is not what this assignment is asking for.
• DON’T mistake a story’s subject with its theme. Subjects or topics like love, family, respect, and loss are NOT full statements of themes. Themes have three components—they are ideas about the world that are expressed in a text and of general importance to many people, not just a small group.
• DON’T rate the stories or give your personal reactions. This paper is not asking you which story you’re writing about is better, or what your personal reactions were to the story. Neither should be included in this paper.

Details:

• Your paper’s claim must be about the thematic connection between 2 of the following stories we have read:
• • “What Furniture Would Jesus Pick?” by Annie Proulx (Week 3) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/18/what-kind-of-furniture-would-jesus-pick
  • “Too Good to Be True” by Michelle Huneven (Week 4) https://harpers.org/archive/2015/12/too-good-to-be-true/
  • “Big Me” by Dan Chaon (Week 5)
  • https://205english.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/big-me.pdf
  • • “The Buddhist” by Alan Rossi (Week 6) https://granta.com/buddhist/
  • • “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates (Week 7) https://www.cusd200.org/cms/lib/IL01001538/Centricity/Domain/361/oates_going.pdf

• Please use proper MLA style in-text citations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in your paper. There is no need for a Works Cited listing for this assignment.
• 4 to 6 pages in length, typed, double-spaced, with standard 1” margins and size 12 font in either Times New Roman or Calibri.
• ~1000-1500 word count.
• Your paper must use college-level academic writing that is largely free of grammatical errors.
• Your heading should consist of your first and last name, the course number and section, and the title of your paper.
• Worth 200 points.
• Due no later than Monday, 03/26 at 11:59 pm.

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