This week we are starting our final essay for the Portfolio project. This essay will focus on the book you have been reading for our course all semester (and if you chose to add a secondary supplemental text, that one too).

Remember, the goal or task for this assignment is ONLY to read through the materials and then answer the two questions at the bottom of this assignment.

First, let’s go over the due dates of the essay before we consider the prompt.

• Draft for Peer Review Due: Wednesday Week 16 by 11:59pm
• Final Draft Due: Monday Week 17 by 11:59pm

Step 1: Review the Prompt.

Essay: Literary Analysis

Objectives

• Use all phases of the writing process to create a largely error free essay, understand and use an academic article to analyze an element of culture, research, synthesize, integrate, and contextualize multiple outside sources (through quotations, paraphrasing, and summary) with their own voice, analysis, or position, while avoiding plagiarism. Employ a variety of organizational patterns to support or advance central ideas (theses/claims).

Minimum Length

• 4-6 pages

Prompt: Your goal is to choose one of the following prompts to form your essay from:

1. Theme Analysis: Choose and analyze a theme from your chosen book(s): What is a major theme that is developed in your book and how is it developed?
2. Rhetorical Analysis: Analyze the author’s use of rhetoric in your chosen work. Was the author’s argument successful? Why was it effective, mostly effective, mostly uneffective, or not effective at all?
3. Comparative Analysis: Analyze your chosen work in relation to another. (This could be the movie of your work, or some other related piece.) Which piece is more successful and why?

   Successful essays will do this by:

• Using standard essay format: introduction, at least two body paragraphs, counterargument, and a conclusion.
• At least two outside sources to support your understanding of the work(s)
• An academic summary of your anchor text in the introduction (your book)
• Clear thesis that answers your chosen prompt with a limited subject (your book) and your attitude about it (your argument)
• Creative title
• MLA Format: Double-spaced, Times New Roman
• Includes a Works Cited page in MLA format that is separate from the 4-6 page minimum length.
• Includes at least six direct quotes from your book
  • If you are using a secondary book, you must include at least four quotes from that source as well
• Includes at least three direct quotes from outside sources

Project Formats

For this essay, please choose a format to present it in:

• Traditional Essay: If you choose this format, you will write and submit a traditional essay
• TED Talk: If you choose this format, you will write and record your essay like a speech, and submit a recorded version of it
• Google Slides/PowerPoint Presentation: If you choose this format, you will be using either Google Slides or PowerPoint or similar program to present your argument.
• YouTube Video: This is similar to the TED Talk option, but create a YouTube video based on your findings/argument. (Both Lindsay Ellis and READUS 101 are great examples of how this would look.)

Feel free, no matter which format you choose to be creative with it: make it pretty, add art and style. I want you to have fun with this.

Step Three: Answer the following questions.

1. Do you have any questions for me about the prompts or formats?
2. Which prompt do you think you want to use for this essay and why?
3. Which format do you think you would like to use?
4. Do you have any anxiety or confusion over completing this writing task to the best of your ability?