As you prepare this and subsequent essays, please review the Writing About Literature and Writing Assignments and Plagiarism Noticedocuments in Unit 1. You may also want to review various sections of your college composition course handbook that deal with organizing and composing effective essays.
Your essay should present a clear, insightful central idea, should have a clear sense of order and logic, should be well developed with specific details to support your assertions, and should use effective language that is free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Avoid plot summaries and provide quotations from the text to support your ideas. Also, it is suggested that you spend ample time writing and revising your essay.
Your Assignment:
Write a 900 word essay, drawing upon what you learned in Unit 2 about literary genres and the readings in Unit 3. Address one (1) of the following topics:
Compare and contrast Life is a Dream and The Peach Blossom Fan. Identify the cultural differences reflected by the plays (including references to the YouTube performance samples if desired). If there are any similarities, speculate as to what aspects of shared common human experience they represent.
Compare and contrast Don Quixote and The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber). Identify the cultural differences reflected by the stories. If there are any similarities, speculate as to what aspects of shared common human experience they represent.
Compare and contrast any three of the poems in this unit and discuss how they reflect the Early Modern idea of introspection - looking inward and individual self-reflection.
Formatting:
MLA. Access the Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style guide - https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Typed/printed, double-spaced, 1" margins. Change them in "Page Setup" on the "File" menu.
Paragraphs indented 5 spaces at left; do not separate paragraphs by extra blank lines.
Quotations of 10 words or less should be integrated into the text; longer quotations should be indented 5 spaces at left and right margins, single spaced, and set off from the text of the essay by a blank line before and after the quotation. Be sure to include verse numbers or line numbers
All sources must be cited. Avoid citing college dictionaries, Wikipedia, or basic references such as the OED, Encyclopedia Britannica, etc.
Instead, use the text, discussion postings, lesson notes, and any sources accessed from GALILEO for outside reference.
Your essay should have a specific title - one that suggests what is the most interesting or important about what you have to say. It's worth taking a little thought over the title, not only because it creates the first impression of your essay; coming up with a phrase which encapsulates your argument can help in focusing that argument. One popular strategy is to use a key phrase from the text followed by another phrase of clarification.