Category: American literature

Ngugu Wa Thiong’o’s The River Between and
China Achebe’s Arrow of God portray the disrupting effect an externally imposed power has on African tradition and customs and also highlight the internal conflict in the culture and heroes, Ezeulu and Waiyaki. Discuss how these two conflicts result in the disintegration of the African culture and the downfall of the heroes.” Support your answer with specific examples from the text, including quotes. Make reference to at least three additional scholarly sources.
Make very close reference to the plays/novel and use, at least, three other sources/articles in your paper.
Document your sources at the end of the paper in a
“Works Cited” page. Use the MLA Documentation Style.
The research paper will be 9

Pick three of the analysis tools below. Briefly explain why you
think they are a good fit for your analysis.
Which character(s) did you
like/dislike the most? Why?
Discuss the “Hook” of the work.
What kept you reading?
Choose one sentence from the work
that you particularly liked and discuss only that sentence.
Analyze a character’s/
audience’s wants, needs, and obstacles.
Analyze a significant object.
Discuss how the context for the
work might have affected the writing itself. 
Context is
any historical, geographical, employment, familial, or national placement.
Take your pulse: After completing this section, address whether your feelings about
the reading have changed.
Notes:
Make sure to:
Check your work for grammatical
and spelling errors
(200 word minimum)

List of “New Words” (100 pts.) – Throughout the semester you will be exposed to many new signs outside of class or watching videos! Keep a list of “New Words” that you find interesting or challenging. Students are required to collect 50 additional signs outside of class learned from attending Deaf Events or watching videos. Students are to write the word and then a written description (to help them remember) of how to sign the word. Vocabulary that is covered in the text is not counted towards the composition notebook points. You will upload a word document in Blackboard in the “New Words” tab prior to the final exam. 

Choose one of these stories and analyze what it says about America at mid-century. What are the pros and the cons in terms of middle-class affluence, ethnicity, and/or religion?
Bellow, “Augie March” 
O’Connor “Good Country People” 
Cheever, “The Swimmer” 
USE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE FROM THE PASSAGE. THESIS SENTENCE MUST BE THE FIRST SENTENCE AND INCLUDE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHED YEAR. 
LEARNING OBJECTIVES: STRONG OPENING THESIS, DEVELOPMENT (500 words), SUPPORT (quotations), OBJECTIVE TONE (No “I” or “we”). 

Research paper on how the Great Depression left a profound impact on American Literature. Incoporate how “The Grapes of Wrath” brought the issues to the light. One quotation in each body paragraph. Clear thesis statement in first paragraph. Works cited page.

analyze ONE of the author’s works and the worldview inherent in the piece(s). 
Stay focused on worldview and textual analysis. Biographical information about the author should occupy no more than 1 or 2 total pages of content, perhaps intermeshing biographical information throughout the essay. Biographical ideas should be relevant to the discussion of the author’s worldview in his/ her work(s). One or 2 biographical sources (such as the textbook) can be consulted. Cite at least 5 additional secondary sources, preferably books and journal articles, to support your argument about the author’s worldview inherent in his/ her life and works.
The paper should include a close analysis of the author’s selected work, showing how the worldview is reflected in that work. 
Ball, Andrew J. “Salvation through socialism”: Conversion in the Work of Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Studies in American Fiction. Volume 47, Issue 2, Fall 2020, pp. 219-232. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/saf.2020.0010. Accessed May 6, 2024.
Labor, Earle. Jack London, Twayne Publishers, 1974. Twayne’s United States
Authors Series 230. Gale eBooks, https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7C9780805718300&v=2.1&u=vic_liberty&it=etoc&p=GVRL&sw=w&aty=sso%3A+shibboleth.Accessed May 7, 2024.
London, Jack. Jack London on Adventure, edited by Terry Mort, Globe Pequot Press, The, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=7081499. Accessed 5 May 2024.
London, Jack. The Jack London Reader. Perseus Books, LLC; 1994. EBSCOhost,
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=33017&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed May 5, 2024.
London, Jack. The Road. Edited by Todd DePastino, Rutgers University Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813540122. Accessed May 6, 2024. 
London, Jack. Selected Works of Jack London, Printers Row Publishing Group, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=6322043. Accessed May 6, 2024.
Tichi, Cecelia. Jack London: A Writer’s Fight for a Better America. University of North Carolina Press, 2015. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469625065_tichi. Accessed 6 May 2024.
Williams, James. Author under Sail : The Imagination of Jack London, 1902-1907, University of Nebraska Press, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=6414395. Accessed 5 May 2024.

The title is a novel’s subject in which the text takes the form of a sentence,
modifying that subject. In a letter to Edwin Percy Whipple of May 2, 1852,
Hawthorne asks Colonel E.P. Whipple to help him choose from amongst many
titles.
“I wish, at least, you would help me to choose a name. I have put
‘Hollingsworth,’ on the title-page, but that is not irrevocable; although, I
think, the best that has occurred to me—as presenting the original figure
about which the rest of the book clustered itself.
Here are others—“Blithedale,”—well enough, but with no positive
merit or suitability. “Miles Coverdale’s Three Friends”;—this title
comprehends the book, but rather clumsily. “The Veiled Lady”—too
melodramatic; and, besides, I do not wish to give prominence to that
feature of the Romance. “Priscilla”—she is such a shrinking damsel that it
seems hardly fair to thrust her into the vanguard and make her the
standard-bearer. “The Blithedale Romance”—that would do, in lack of a
better. “The Arcadian Summer”—not a taking title. “Zenobia”—Mr. Ware
has anticipated me in this. In short, I can think of nothing that exactly suits
the case. (Letters 536–37)”
Describe how the book would be read differently with one of those titles. For this
essay, you might want to refer to Hawthorne stories with similar characters. You
may want to look into the relation of prison and utopia. “Earth’s Holocaust” and “Young Goodman Brown” might be worthwhile, too. 

”
now our turn to write about something that belongs in the Anthropocene (no matter if the scientists have said we have not arrived yet). This will answer our driving question about our society’s trajectory. use this assignment to show what has impacted or driven the trajectory of humans, either in a 1-star format or 5-star format—as you saw from Green, not everything in life will be 5-star. “

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. This writing genre is not simply a summary, but performs (either implicitly or explicitly) an argument: is this work of social, cultural, historical value? Do you agree or disagree with the author’s purpose in writing the novel? What are this novel’s attributes or shortcomings? (These are just a few sample questions.)
To prepare for this assignment, consider performing some research and reading some published book reviews of our novels (additionally, I have included book reviews in optional readings during the semester). You’ll notice that book reviews vary greatly in tone, context, and other rhetorical choices. You, specifically, will be writing your book review for the Mary Couts Burnett Library and therefore your audience is your compatriots in higher education. However, that does not mean your own review will not vary in tone from those of your peers: you can choose a more formal, academic tone to fit the higher academia setting or a more informal, conversational tone to engage with peers on a more personal level. Either tone is acceptable and welcome.
UNC at Chapel Hill offers a great “how-to” guide for writing book reviews, which you can find here. TCU’s Center for Writing also has a handout on book and film reviews, which is available here.
Choose one of the novels we have read this semester and compose a book review for the Mary Couts Burnett Library. Your review should have a central controlling idea (i.e. a thesis statement), well-organized paragraphs, and an original title. Your review should be 1000-1500 words in length, not including the Works Cited page.
Here are your options to choose from:
– “A” is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
– Inner City Blues by Paula L. Woods
– Murder by the Red River by Marcie R. Rendon
– Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
– Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
While additional outside sources are not a requirement for this essay, you should consider including those sources if/when necessary. You will need to quote often from the investigator’s source text, and therefore do not forget to include it in your Works Cited page.

Prompt: EAST OF EDEN: GOOD VS. EVIL
Answer all parts of this prompt in the proper order. One outside source is required.
Explore the concept of good and evil in East of Eden, focusing on Ch.34 in particular.
How does this relate to the concept of “timshel? What is the implication in Lee’s statement that Cal has a choice? Is Cathy evil? Is Cal evil? Is Adam good? Is Aron good? Explain. (You may explore other characters, too.)
Your paper should refer to the “Crash Course in Ethics” slide, Good vs. Evil, and “East of Eden and Philosophy” PowerPoint (both count as outside sources).
Feel free to include other observations and speculations about the novel and its characters.) You may compare and contrast this topic to the 1955 film and/or the 1981 television miniseries if you like.
Only videos, PowerPoint presentations, and links to external sites are accepted as outside sources. All sources must be properly referenced (MLA, APAS, or CMS)
Sources should be 1: The book, “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck and 2: An external outside source.
FORMAT: This essay has to be between approx. 2 and 4 pages, double-spaced, with a medium font size such as 11/12. No specific font, just a legible one!. (That is approx. the same as 600-1100 words.) Give yourself at least 10 days to complete this assignment. I suggest you write at least two drafts before submitting your essay. This assignment has to be submitted as a Word file attachment. Otherwise I can’t write comments in the paper. You cannot submit the essay as a .pages file! Text submissions (not as Word files) will lose 3 points.  (Be aware that you will probably not be able to submit an essay using your smartphone.) Please do not submit .pdf files. I can open and read them, but I can’t add comments to them.
Sources: You have to use, and refer to, the textbook and the relevant Module(s).  In addition, you have to research at least one link in the Module(s) and include it in your essay. The only research of outside sources allowed for this essay is research of links provided in the Modules. “East of Eden and Philosophy” PowerPoint counts as an outside source. All quotes have to be clearly indicated by quotation marks, even quotes from the Reader and East of Eden.  When you refer to or quote sources linked in the Modules, you have to provide a list of Works Cited/Bibliography.  Use MLA, APA, or CMS style. Keep quotes short and relevant.