Assignment

Overview

These paragraphs serve several purposes. Most importantly, they give you a chance to start working out a specific reading of Things. They also keep you practicing

focusing on a single topic;
smoothly integrating a secondary source;
transitioning from one paragraph to another on the same topic;
In sum, this assignment will help you understand the novel by narrowing down to a specific reading/interpretation and exposing you to different scholarly viewpoints.

TOPIC #1 from essay #2 - In an interview, O'Brien writes that "If there is a theme to the whole book it has to do with the fact that stories can save our lives" (qtd. in Publishers 202). How does the novel show this? Trace out this theme in the novel by showing that, indeed, the novel does argue that "stories can save our lives."

Developing a model of narrative analysis to investigate the role of social support in coping with traumatic war memories.
Authors:
Burnell, Karen J.
Hunt, Nigel
Coleman, Peter G.

Task

Write two body paragraphs focused on a single topic. This topic should be based on a possible division from one of the topics for essay #2. Use one of the topic sentences from below to set up and focus your paragraph. You'll have an implied thesis and a specific division to argue. See the student examples below to get an idea of the kind of writing required for this assignment.

Remember that this is a body paragraph, not an introduction: you can refer to the author as "O'Brien," etc. because it's assumed you already mentioned the author's full name and the title of the novel in your introduction (which again, you don't have to write).

While the focus will be on the primary source (the novel), for this assignment you'll incorporate one of the two secondary sources that you'll be reading and bringing into class on our third day of discussing Things. Choose one from the "General" or "Coping" or "Truth" section, and one from the "Biographical" section.

Think of these paragraphs as body paragraphs for an essay -- in other words, you'll develop one particular division that could work in an essay.

Since you're citing sources, you will need to include the works cited.