English 3653     Spring 2009                 SECOND UNIT EXAM                                Mercer

 

OUT-OF-CLASS ESSAY (50 points possible).  Write out of class and submit in class on April 1 an essay on the following topic:

 

ESSAY TOPIC

Many of the assigned works of Victorian English literature reveal the unhappiness of the writer, the speaker, one or more characters, and/or segments of society as a whole. Write an essay that supports an original thesis concerning the causes of unhappiness in the assigned works of Victorian English literature, including Tennyson’s In Memoriam. 

 

CLARIFICATION OF TOPIC

  1. Causes of unhappiness could include powers beyond human control (chance events, fate, the actions of deities), the structure of society (unequal distribution of wealth, lack of education, a corrupt legal system), the nature of the human condition (physical illness, the aging process), or the attitudes and/or actions of individuals and/or groups (apathy, self-hatred, warfare).  (Because the specific examples in parentheses above are NOT particularly prominent in the assigned works of the Victorian Period, they are NOT likely to appear in your essay.)

 

  1. You may discuss immediate causes (those closest to the resulting unhappiness) and/or ultimate causes (those farthest removed from the resulting unhappiness).

 

  1. Focus on the literary works themselves rather than on the historical and biographical background material in the textbook.  Do NOT discuss a writer’s personal unhappiness unless it is reflected in an assigned work.  Do NOT assume that the unhappiness of a character in a work reflects the writer’s personal unhappiness.  Do NOT interpret works autobiographically unless you have good reason to do so.  Works that demand an autobiographical interpretation include Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, Mill’s Autobiography, and Tennyson’s In Memoriam.

 

CRITERIA FOR GRADING ESSAY

  1. Adherence to assigned topic and specific instructions, meeting and exceeding minimum requirements. To receive a C, the essay must meet the following minimum criteria:
    1. develop at least three (3) body paragraphs.
    2. develop each body paragraph with specific references to at least three (3) assigned works.
    3. include references to at least eight (8) assigned authors.
    4. include references to at least twelve (12) assigned works, including Tennyson’s In Memoriam.  
    5. be at least two (2) full pages long.

To receive an A or B, the essay must significantly exceed some or all of these minimum criteria.

 

  1. Clear, logical, organized thinking and writing about the assigned topic
  2. Demonstration of your comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the assigned works by providing examples that are very specific, numerous, and logically relevant

 

  1. Mechanical correctness, especially in spelling and punctuation of authors and titles, in documentation of quotations, and in avoidance of serious errors such as sentence fragments, comma splices, run-on sentences, and subject-verb agreement errors.         

 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING ESSAY

  1. HELP:
    1. Work independently.  This is NOT a group project or a research paper.  Do NOT collaborate with others or use sources outside the textbook.  Rely on your own reading of the assigned works.  Do not submit an essay that is like someone else’s in content or organization.
    2. For best results, get my advance feedback (preferably in person, but if that isn’t possible, by telephone or e-mail) on your thesis and main points and later on a complete draft.  The best way to get feedback on a complete draft is to make an appointment to discuss your essay with me during my office hours.  The deadline for submitting a complete draft for feedback by e-mail (cut and pasted, NOT by attachment) is Sunday, March 29, at 3 p.m.  You may continue to ask questions by e-mail after that time, and you may get my response to your draft in hard copy during my office hours as late as Monday, March 30, and Tuesday, March 31.  (Please bring two copies of your draft to your appointment.) 

 

  1. MANUSCRIPT FORM:
    1. Font: Use Times New Roman 12.
    2. Spacing: Double-space your paper. Do NOT leave additional spaces before or after the title or between paragraphs.
    3. Justification: Use left (not right or full) justification.
    4. Margins: Use one-inch margins on all four sides of the page.  The default margins in Microsoft Word are 1.25 inches; please change your margins to one (1) inch.  You may, however, reduce your margins to one-half (0.5) inch if necessary to squeeze your paper onto three (3) pages, the maximum allowed length.
    5. Paragraph indentation: Indent each paragraph one-half inch (five [5] spaces) from the left margin.
    6. Identification: Because I do not want to know whose essay I am grading, do NOT put your name anywhere on the paper.  Omit the usual heading from the upper left of the first page.  Instead, insert as a header your nine (9)-digit SSN followed by one space and the page number in the upper right of each page, beginning with page 1. To protect the security of your SSN, you may falsify any of the numbers except the last four (4).  

 

  1. TITLE:  Give your essay a title that clearly and specifically reflects the content of the essay, repeating key words from the thesis and including the phrase “Victorian Literature” (or something similar).  Examples of clear, specific titles are
    1. Deadly Sins: Roots of Misery in Victorian Literature
    2. Society’s Hurtful Attitudes in Victorian Literature
    3. Actions that Cause Unhappiness in Victorian English Literature
    4. Our Own Worst Enemy: Self-Inflicted Misery in the Literature of Victorian England

 

  1. THESIS:  
    1. Clearly and concisely state the thesis of your essay in a separate opening paragraph of only one or two sentences.  No other introduction is required or desired.  Use your time and space to develop the body of the essay.
    2. Make the thesis directly respond to and use key words from the assigned topic.
    3. Make the thesis accurately reflect what the body of the paper supports.
    4. If the thesis lists the main points to be covered in the body of the essay, put the list in one sentence and in the same order as in the body.

 

  1. ORGANIZATION: Organize the body of the essay into at least three (3) paragraphs, each beginning with a topic sentence that
    1. covers the entire paragraph (and therefore does NOT refer to only one literary work).
    2. states a main point that clearly supports the thesis (most likely identifying one cause of unhappiness in Victorian literature).  
    3. does not illogically overlap with the topic sentence and content of another body paragraph.  (For example, the three main points emotions, hate, and human behavior as causes of unhappiness could all overlap because hate is an emotion that motivates behavior.)

 

  1. DEVELOPMENT:  In each body paragraph, clearly develop and support the topic sentence with specific references to as many assigned authors and assigned works as possible (minimum of three [3] assigned works per paragraph, preferably more). The essay as a whole must specifically refer to at least twelve (12) different assigned works (including Tennyson’s In Memoriam) by at least eight (8) different assigned authors (preferably more of each).  It is fine to refer to the same author or work in more than one body paragraph, but don’t count an author or work twice.  Your supporting references to the works should

a.       be logically relevant to the topic sentence of the paragraph and the thesis of the essay.

b.      clearly show a cause-and-effect relationship to the unhappiness of the writer, the speaker, one or more characters, and/or segments of society as a whole.

c.       be brief, usually no longer than one (1) or two (2) sentences each.  (See the examples in the model essay posted on the class Web page.)

d.      despite their brevity, still be very specific, demonstrating your comprehensive knowledge of the assigned works.

e.       usually be in your own words.  (It is NOT necessary or desirable to use a quotation every time you refer to a work!)

f.        occasionally be in very brief quotations, introduced, documented, and punctuated as described below under “DOCUMENTATION.”  

g.       avoid long quotations of more than three (3) consecutive lines of poetry or more than four typed (4) lines of prose, which would have to be indented and are too long for a short essay like this.

h.       correctly spell and punctuate the names of the authors, titles, and characters.  For the correct punctuation of titles, see the assignment sheet for this unit.

i.         use present-tense verbs to refer in your own words to plots and characters of the literary works; use past-tense verbs to refer to historical events outside the works. When you quote, leave the verb tense as it is.

 

  1. QUOTATIONS AND DOCUMENTATION:  The following guidelines for quotations and parenthetical documentation are based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed. (2003). The quotations below are italicized only to make them stand out.  Do NOT italicize the quotations in your paper.
    1. Smoothly introduce all quotations, as illustrated in the examples below.

   

    1. Immediately after each brief quotation of prose, document in parenthesis the page number(s) where it appears in our textbook.  

Like this: In “My First Acquaintance with Poets,” Hazlitt describes Coleridge’s nose as “small, feeble, nothing—like what he has done” (543).

 

    1. Immediately after each brief quotation of poetry, document in parenthesis the page number(s) where it appears in our textbook, followed by a semicolon, one (1) space, and the line number(s) within the poem.

Like this: In “My Heart Leaps Up,” Wordsworth says he wants to have “natural piety” as long as he lives (306; line 9).

 

    1. Do NOT, however, use page or line numbers to introduce quotations. 

NOT: On page 306, Wordsworth says in line 9 of “My Heart Leaps Up” that he wants to have “natural piety” as long as he lives.

 

    1. When you quote two (2) or three (3) lines of poetry consecutively, place a slash mark (preceded and followed by one (1) space) to show where one line ends and the next line begins.  Do NOT use a slash mark, however, between quoted lines of prose.

Like this: In “To a Sky-Lark,” Shelley says that, unlike birds, human beings “look before and after, / And pine for what is not” (817; lines 86-87).

NOT: In “To a Sky-Lark,” Shelley says that, unlike birds, human beings “look before and after, And pine for what is not” (817; lines 86-87).

NOT: In “To a Sky-Lark,” Shelley says that, unlike birds, human beings “look before and after,/And pine for what is not” (817; lines 86-87).

 

    1. When you cite multiple pages or lines, repeat only the last two digits unless more are necessary to avoid confusion.

Like this: In “Michael,” Luke never returns to his parents’ land because “in the dissolute city [he] gave himself / To evil courses” (301; lines 444-45).

NOT: In “Michael,” Luke never returns to his parents’ land because “in the dissolute city [he] gave himself / To evil courses” (301; lines 444-445).

NOT: In “Michael,” Luke never returns to his parents’ land because “in the dissolute city [he] gave himself / To evil courses” (301; lines 444-5).

 

    1. Place periods and commas INSIDE, not outside, closing quotation marks. 

Like this: In “The Tables Turned,” Wordsworth continues a debate he has already introduced in “Expostulation and Reply.”  

NOT: In “The Tables Turned”, Wordsworth continues a debate he has already introduced in “Expostulation and Reply”. 

 

    1. When parenthetical documentation immediately follows quotation marks, drop the punctuation mark at the end of the quotation (with the exception of a question mark or exclamation point), and after the parenthetical documentation place the punctuation your own sentence requires.

Like this: Blake shows his preoccupation with sin in the poem that begins, “O Rose, thou art sick” (91).

NOT: Blake shows his preoccupation with sin in the poem that begins, “O Rose, thou art sick.” (91)

Like this: Blake’s narrator asks the tiger, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (93; line 20).

NOT: Blake’s narrator asks the tiger, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee” (93;  line 20)?

                 

    1. Leave one (1) space between closing quotation marks and opening parenthesis.

Like this: In her journal, Dorothy Wordsworth writes that the daffodils “tossed & reeled & danced” (391).

NOT: In her journal, Dorothy Wordsworth writes that the daffodils “tossed & reeled & danced”(391).

 

    1. Quotations must be exactly accurate.  Any changes in words, capitalization, or punctuation must be placed inside square brackets.  Omissions within quotations must be indicated by ellipsis marks (three spaced periods). 

 

  1. CONCLUSION: Conclude the essay with a one- or two-sentence paragraph that restates the thesis in different words.  No other conclusion is required or desired.  Use your time and space to develop the body of the essay.

 

  1. LENGTH: The essay should be at least two (2) full pages and no more than three (3) full pages.  You will probably need three (3) full pages to develop a superior essay. 

 

  1. LIST OF LITERARY WORKS CITED:
    1. On a separate page following the essay, number and list the assigned authors and assigned works (correctly spelled and punctuated as on the assignment sheet for the unit) to which you refer in the essay.  No particular ordered is required.  Set up your list like this:

Author 1: ____________

            Title of 1st work by author 1: ____________

            Title of 2nd work by author 1: ____________

Author 2: ____________

            Title of 1st work by author 2: ____________

            Title of 2nd work by author 2: ____________

    1. At the end of your list of works cited, report the following:

                                                               i.      Total number of assigned authors: ___ (8 required)

                                                             ii.      Total number of assigned works: ___ (12 required)

    1. If the essay includes any unassigned Victorian works from the textbook, place those names and titles in parenthesis in your list of works cited, and do not count them as assigned authors or works.
    2. Superior essays will probably refer to significantly more than the minimum number of assigned works.

 

  1. EDITING AND PROOFREADING:
    1. Before you print the final version of your paper, revise, edit, and proofread it carefully. 
    2. Be sure to use spell-check. 
    3. After you have printed the paper, proofread it in hard copy.   If you see errors and can=t reprint, make corrections in black ink.

 

  1. SUBMISSION OF ESSAY
    1. To assemble your essay for submission:

                                                               i.      Staple the pages of your essay.

                                                             ii.      Separately from the essay, staple the pages of a clean, unmarked copy of this document. 

                                                            iii.      Paper-clip your essay in front of this document.

b.      Submit your essay in class at 4:30 p.m. on April 1.  Even if your essay is not finished or printed, be sure you are present in class at 4:30 p.m.