To understand the essay assignment, do the following:
Read the biographical sketch of each author very thoroughly.
Read each work actively by making marginal notes, underlining important ideas, and writing your first impressions.
Find the meanings of words that you do not understand.
Determine what is happening, where it is occurring, and who is involved.
Read – Writing Effectively
Read Chapter 42 – Writing About A Play (= right here… Writing about a play.pdf download
Read Critically –
Common Approaches to Writing About Drama –
How to Quote a Play –
Select one of the following topics and write a two – to three page essay.
Be sure to review procedures for writing about drama above.
Choose one of the following questions for your essay:
What is the significance of the fence in August Wilson’s Fences? What does the fence represent to Troy and to Rose? How does Wilson use the fence to develop theme?
Troy talks a great deal about the importance of independence and self-reliance, but he is also a user and manipulator of others. Does this make him a liar? Something else?
How does Troy’s character change over the course of the play? Support your opinion with specific examples from the play.
Are Troy’s problems self-created or out of his control? Support your opinion with specific examples from the play.
To what extent is Troy wrong about how American society has changed during his lifetime? To what extent is he right?
Writing the Essay
Your essay should have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
The introduction should do the following:
Interest the reader with an effective opener
Identify the subject, work, and author (give author’s full name)
Introduce essay’s topic
Define key words, if necessary
Present a thesis statement
The Body should do the following:
Have logical organization
Have unity – present one central idea and be coherent.
Provide sufficient information to explain thesis statement
Have paragraphs that are unified, coherent, and adequately developed with details and evidence.
The conclusion should do the following:
Restate the thesis
Summarize the main points
When writing about literature, remember to do the following:
Place quotation marks around the titles of poems, short stories, essays or chapters of a book and italicize the titles of novels or plays.
Use the present tense. For example, when explaining what a narrator says, you would write this: The narrator describes the people gathering for the lottery: “Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (233). Notice that the verb describes is in the present tense.
Incorporate quotes into your writing by introducing the quote as I did above or by blending the quote into your sentence like this: The men discuss “planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (233).
Document quotes from the literary works by placing the page number from the prose work in parenthesis and the line number from a poem in parenthesis. Then write the source cited on a works cited page like this example:
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature – An Introduction to Reading
and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry Jacobs. 5th ed.
Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998. 233-238.
Give your essay a title which reflects the content of your essay.
