Essay Four
Prompt:
Virginia Artists (Analysis Essay)
Due Friday, 11-14-14
Each region of Virginia has produced great artists who, using various mediums, attempt to depict, criticize, and perhaps even change the worlds in which they live or lived. For your final 3 page essay, you will analyze how particular aspects of a work of art (such as a short story, poem, song, or painting by a single artist) contribute to an overall effect (or theme). For this paper, you need to find at least two outside sources, one of which must be peer-reviewed (i.e., a journal article or book).
This assignment can most easily be performed if you choose to write on a work of literature; if you wish to write on music or painting, be sure to check with me first. The Virginia Association of Teachers of English has an excellent website that shows you which authors are from which parts of Virginia (http://www.vate.org/litmapva/litmapva.htm). Read over some of the biographies of the authors and descriptions of their work on this site. Then use the Longwood library catalogue, interlibrary loan, or the internet to locate materials from which you can select an appropriate object of analysis.
Your paper should contain these basic elements:
1. Introduction. Introduce us to the author or artist (who he/she is and why he/she matters) and give a very brief summary of the work you will be analyzing. Give your readers any background information necessary to understand your thesis.
2. Thesis. End your initial paragraph with a debatable thesis that announces the work’s major theme and that identifies at least three aspects of the work that contribute to it (for example, setting, character, and plot all work together to produce a particular theme in Chopin’s “The Storm”; but note that the same could be said of Bruegel’s “The Fall of Icarus.”)
3. Body. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that makes a specific point about how a particular aspect of the work contributes to its theme. The rest of the paragraph should support this point with evidence (concrete examples and quotations from the work serve as proof for this kind of paper). Be sure to interpret and explain any evidence that might be taken more than one way and to account for any textual evidence that seems to contradict your points.
5. Conclusion. Explain the significance of your argument; what have you shown about the work in question, and why does it matter?
6. Works Cited. Include a MLA Works Cited page; cite consistently; use accurate spelling/grammar.
Virginia Artists (Analysis Essay)
Due Friday, 11-14-14
Each region of Virginia has produced great artists who, using various mediums, attempt to depict, criticize, and perhaps even change the worlds in which they live or lived. For your final 3 page essay, you will analyze how particular aspects of a work of art (such as a short story, poem, song, or painting by a single artist) contribute to an overall effect (or theme). For this paper, you need to find at least two outside sources, one of which must be peer-reviewed (i.e., a journal article or book).
This assignment can most easily be performed if you choose to write on a work of literature; if you wish to write on music or painting, be sure to check with me first. The Virginia Association of Teachers of English has an excellent website that shows you which authors are from which parts of Virginia (http://www.vate.org/litmapva/litmapva.htm). Read over some of the biographies of the authors and descriptions of their work on this site. Then use the Longwood library catalogue, interlibrary loan, or the internet to locate materials from which you can select an appropriate object of analysis.
Your paper should contain these basic elements:
1. Introduction. Introduce us to the author or artist (who he/she is and why he/she matters) and give a very brief summary of the work you will be analyzing. Give your readers any background information necessary to understand your thesis.
2. Thesis. End your initial paragraph with a debatable thesis that announces the work’s major theme and that identifies at least three aspects of the work that contribute to it (for example, setting, character, and plot all work together to produce a particular theme in Chopin’s “The Storm”; but note that the same could be said of Bruegel’s “The Fall of Icarus.”)
3. Body. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that makes a specific point about how a particular aspect of the work contributes to its theme. The rest of the paragraph should support this point with evidence (concrete examples and quotations from the work serve as proof for this kind of paper). Be sure to interpret and explain any evidence that might be taken more than one way and to account for any textual evidence that seems to contradict your points.
5. Conclusion. Explain the significance of your argument; what have you shown about the work in question, and why does it matter?
6. Works Cited. Include a MLA Works Cited page; cite consistently; use accurate spelling/grammar.