Essay Requirements:
1. Students can choose either poetry or song lyrics for this assignment. Students can use more than one work in their papers (perhaps several works from one author, several works on the same theme, or several works from the same time period) or can focus on just one. You can use poems that you discussed in class.
2. There are two goals of the essay:
a. To analyze the poem(s) / song lyric(s) using poetry formalist elements.
b. To use outside research to expand the analysis / discussion of the short story through either application of a school of critical theory (if using reader-response, you must use an additional school of criticism - you must conduct research for this paper) or by using literary criticism written about the short story (using Artemis as accessed through the PGCC Databases). You must use academic resources for this paper. Sparknotes, CliffsNotes, GradeSaver or any study guides, nor Wikipedia or free essay websites cannot be used as research for the papers in this class.
3. Do not use first person (I, my, me, we, us) or second person (you, your) when writing the essay (unless quoting a source that uses first or second person).
4. The audience for the paper is an academic audience. Academic audiences expect very few (if any) sentence level errors and a professional, formal tone.
5. Essays must follow MLA format, both in appearance (Times New Roman 12 point font, double spacing, first page heading, pagination, etc.) and citation (works cited AND in-text citation). Refreshers on MLA format are in Week 2 of the Blackboard and Chapters 6 & 7 in your textbook.
6. The minimum length of each essay is 3 full pages. Essays may exceed the minimum; however, do not go over 8 pages. Essays shorter than 3 full pages or over 8 pages will be penalized one grade (ten points). The works cited does NOT count towards page count.
7. The minimum amount of sources required for each essay is two. One must be the poem(s) / song lyric(s) and the other is the student's choice (see 2b above). Students are encouraged to use more than this, but two is the minimum.