Independent Novel Assignment

Independent Novel Response (update 7/27)

Sorry for not updating the blog until today. I thought I had completed it before I left for the summer break, but I hadn't! Please feel free to complete this portion of the assignment any day before August 7.  Additionally, this assignment isn't really conducive to the blog format, so I would like you to share a google doc with me at groscher@basdschools.org. If you're more comfortable working with MS Word, you can word process your response and attach it to an email to the same address. Files should be labelled as follows: lastname - independent novel. Please take note of the spaces and make your file name match.

After reading your independent novel selection, you'll be "sketching" an essay based upon its most essential parts. Please feel free to review the concepts of effective thesis statements, topic sentences, and argumentative explanations online. However, do not access any resources that are specific to your chosen novel or the assigned prompt. They are definitely out there. Do not use them.

      1.  Read the prompt that corresponds with your novel and do whatever prewriting activity you feel most competent with to think your way to an insightful and specific answer. Compose a thesis statement (specific and concise) that could organize an essay that answers the prompt and captures the essence of your thinking.

     2.  Now that you've got a thesis, think about what ought to be argued in order to clearly articulate your insights. For many, this will come from the three prongs you've alluded to in your thesis. Compose three specific and argumentative topic sentences that expand on the idea in your thesis.

     3.  Provide two or three direct passages from the novel that showcase/ support/ develop each of the three topic sentences. Attach an explanation to each passage that expands on the topic sentence and continues to develop your idea as presented in the thesis statement. Organize it like a split note chart.

     4.   Here's an example of what a formatted sketch might look like.



Roscher
AP Literature and Composition
7/27/15

Thesis: In his classic fable Little Red Riding Hood, Charles Perrault relies on a dutiful yet childishly simplistic protagonist to develop an environment that conspicuously reinforces traditional assumptions of gender.


Topic Sentence 1: Perrault takes particular care to showcase his protagonist as well intentioned yet naive, and in so doing begins his tacit endorsement of traditional gender norms.

Passages                                                                      and Explanations

1. "The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother" (Perrault).

1. In this passage, the author refers to Riding Hood as the "poor child", a term that puts the young girl in her place as a subordinate just as as it attempts to excuse her ignorance of the dangers in speaking with wolves. Perrault is almost excusing her ignorance of the danger based upon the fact that she's a girl and doesn't know any better.

2. "Little Red Riding Hood took off her clothes and got into bed" (Perrault).

2. This passage is narrated after the wolf had eaten her grandmother and invited her in bed to snuggle with her. Riding Hood is dutiful and naive and, therefore, is completely unquestioning as she hops into bed to cuddle a wolf. In this scene, the wolf is bold, and despite his earlier apprehensions about the nearby woodcutters feels sufficiently distant from his nearest male competitors to lure the unsuspecting girl to her death.

(I hope you get the idea. The rest is completed below without the passages and explanations.)

Topic Sentence 2: Because of her naivety, Red Riding Hood finds herself under the control of the influential male characters in the story, specifically the Wolf himself and the Woodcutter.

Passages                                                                        and Explanations

 

Topic Sentence 3: The environment in Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood is one in which Riding Hood and the other female characters are influenced by the men in their immediate surroundings.

Passages                                                                        and Explanations

 

Prompts: 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.


The Awakening (Chopin)
In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.


Billy Budd (Melville)
The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, "No body, but he who felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time."

From a novel or play choose a character (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.


Catch-22 (Heller)
"The true test of comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Choose a novel, play, or long poem in which a scene or character awakens "thoughtful laughter" in the reader. Write an essay in which you show why this laughter is "thoughtful" and how it contributes to the meaning of the work.


Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) 

Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Yet Said has also said that exile can become “a potent, even enriching” experience.
Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize the plot.

Great Expectations (Dickens)

“And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny or any supernatural
agency.” Pauline Hopkins, Contending Forces
Choose a novel or play in which cultural, physical, or geographical surroundings shape psychological or moral traits in a character. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how surroundings affect this character and illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole.
Do not merely summarize the plot.

Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
Many works of literature not readily identified with the mystery or detective story genre nonetheless involve the investigation of a mystery.  In these works, the solution to the mystery may be less important than the knowledge gained in the process of its investigation.  Choose a novel or play in which one or more of the characters confront a mystery.  Then write an essay in which you identify the mystery and explain how the investigation illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.  Do not merely summarize the plot.


Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)

A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, recounts the psychological or moral development of its protagonist from youth to maturity, when this character recognizes his or her place in the world. Select a single pivotal moment in the psychological or moral development of the protagonist of a bildungsroman. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how that single moment shapes the meaning of the work as a whole.
Do not merely summarize the plot.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston)
A bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, recounts the psychological or moral development of its protagonist from youth to maturity, when this character recognizes his or her place in the world. Select a single pivotal moment in the psychological or moral development of the protagonist of a bildungsroman. Then write a well-organized essay that analyzes how that single moment shapes the meaning of the work as a whole.
Do not merely summarize the plot.

Invisible Man (Ellison)
Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary.