English 101

 

Task 1

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Submit your fourth essay here. The essay should be no fewer than three full, double-spaced, typed pages, and can be as long as necessary to adequately respond to the prompt. Work on making your writing clear, concise, and sincere. Be sure to read this prompt carefully (maybe read it through twice!).

For this final essay, I would like you to focus on practicing good, clear, college essay skills. The essay will be an argumentative essay, and you may choose a book or film with which you are already familiar as your subject. Give yourself time to think about what you might like to argue (what point you would like to make about your subject), and outline what pieces of evidence you would like to use to make that point. For example, if I picked Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I might decide to argue that Hagrid is the story’s “background” hero (this would be my thesis). To support this, I would have to pick scenes from the book that suggest his heroism: Hagrid brings Harry to Hogwarts, helps rescue Harry as a baby, and often stands up for what is right at great personal risk. Each of these points would make up the backbone of my paragraphs throughout the essay. Then, in a final concluding paragraph, I would summarize my points and restate my argument. This would be a clear, formal argumentative paper (hopefully, though, your argument will be a bit more interesting than the example I just made up!).

As always, if you have questions, just ask them. As a bit of advice, limit yourself to a smaller amount of material – too much and your essay will become too general and vague (so pick one book, rather than a trilogy, or one Harry Potter film, rather than the whole series). Even then, consider focusing on one character, one location, or one plot device, rather than writing about an entire book. As always, the more specific you can be, the more interesting and focused your writing will become. One more thing: do not summarize. You can give details about the plot if they are necessary to making your points, but whole paragraphs devoted to summary do not help your argument – they are dead space! Again, assume I have read the book or seen the film and do not summarize for summary’s sake.

Specifics: This essay must be at least three full pages (Times New Roman, size 12 font, double spaced). It should also not exceed five pages. It needs to include an introduction with a thesis statement, main points in each paragraph which relate to the thesis, and a concluding paragraph. Apart from the book or film you analyze, do not use sources for this essay

 

 

 

Task 2

 

Something I like to do in my classroom courses is to make a list of all my students’ favorite books. This not only gives me a chance to learn a little more about you, but it also gives your classmates some ideas for good books! For this post, I’d like you to pick a favorite book (or two or three) and give a sentence about why you liked it. Also, if you care to, include a short sentence about which essay you liked best (or which you disliked most) from our course. For this post, you only need to post once.