english

 MLA style

• Choose a story or poem from this Module to focus on
• Decide what aspect or element of the story to focus your paragraph on. (For instance: how the setting emphasizes the story’s meaning, or how a character changes in the story)
• Re-read or scan through the story or poem to find quotes to use in your paragraph
• Be sure you’ve read Chapter 30, pages 1914-1918

Complete these readings from the textbook:  

· Literature

· A Rose for Emily

· Barn Burning

· Norton Chapter 7 (pages 429-431)

· Norton Chapter 30 (pages 1914-1918)

Remember that academic reading is a skill you develop over time.

Module 4: Lesson and Notes

 Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1zKaERpWgQ&feature=emb_title

Topic or Theme?

Most of what we think of as literary themes are examples of topics. 

Topic: What the work is exploring. The topics are the repeating or central subjects, or recurring ideas in a piece of literature.

· Examples: love, friendship, growing up, good and evil.

Theme: What the work says about the topic. Themes are always expressing as complete sentences and represent the universal idea expressed in the work. 

· Examples: the bonds of friendship may be stronger than family ties, the past will always affect the present, what appears good may not always be so, not all things can be overcome by love, growing up requires sacrifice.

Common Literary Topics

· Love

· Death

· War

· Good and evil

· Coming of age / growing up

· Power and corruption

· Survival / Overcoming hardship

· Courage 

· Social issues (like prejudice, poverty, injustice, inequality)

· Nature

· Climate

· Forgiveness

What is Theme?

· Theme is always a complete sentence.

· Theme is an arguable claim made by a story.

· Theme is the point the story is trying to make.

· Theme connects fiction to our lived human experiences.

· Theme is a big idea, a universal statement, an argument or claim about one of life’s big ideas.

This page (including a short video) (Links to an external site.)

 is a good start to understanding theme

What isn’t Theme?

· Theme can never be one word: love, friendship, dogs, or tacos are big ideas, but they’re not claims.

· Theme can never be summary: what happens in the story reveals the meaning, but the theme is universal and can be applied to your life and mine.

· Theme is not an easy lesson: “listen to your parents,” or “be nice to people” are good ideas, but they aren’t complex enough to drive literature.

Common Literary Themes

· Love will only grow when it is nurtured.

· Practice pays off.

· Power requires responsibility.

· Cooperation is the key to survival.

· It is important to protect the environment.

· Painful experiences can make a person stronger.

· The past will always impact the present and future.

· Some family bonds are not worth fighting for.

· Love requires sacrifice.

· Adulthood is a rewarding burden.

· Independence requires responsibility.

· Hope is powerful, but also dangerous.

Things to Remember When Writing About Theme

· Why is more important than what. Identifying a symbol is only important if you also explain what it means and how it relates to the theme.

· Think about what the story seems to value and promote? What gets rewarded? What is learned?

· Explain and analyze how a theme is shown, what in the story reveals the theme or relates to it.

Who Cares?

Reading for theme has many benefits:

· We will read to find out what happens, what the literature is about, but also what the literature has to say. 

· What we will discover this semester is that literature from hundreds of years ago still relates to our experiences. 

· We will also learn about the experiences of those who have lived in wholly different civilizations. This broader perspective is one of the important benefits of reading literature. 

· Finally, reading and thinking about literature helps us better understand our own lives and worlds. As we consider literature, we consider ideas, situations, and themes as they might relate to us. 

Thinking about the readings from this Module, write a 400 word discussion board post in which you explore one or more of these questions:

· Choose one story or from this module and discuss how it portrays the theme that the past affects the present.

· How is the theme introduced and expressed?

· What literary devices are prominently used to help illustrate or emphasize this theme?

· Why do you think the work you’ve chosen does or doesn’t belong in this module?

· What other theme is expressed in the work?

Body paragraphs (sometimes called “discussion sections”) are the parts of your essay that aren’t the intro or conclusion. Each of these paragraphs will have: a leading topic sentence that states the paragraph’s focus, evidence (quotes, examples, or research), and analysis (your explanation of how the evidence supports the paragraph’s main idea. 

Prepare

· Choose a story or poem from this Module to focus on

· Decide what aspect or element of the story to focus your paragraph on. (For instance: how the setting emphasizes the story’s meaning, or how a character changes in the story)

· Re-read or scan through the story or poem to find quotes to use in your paragraph

· Be sure you’ve read Chapter 30, pages 1914-1918

· Use these reference guides to help you understand paragraph composition:

·

Writing Toolkit: Paragraphs / Discussion Sections

·

Writing Toolkit: Formatting Your Paper For Submission

·

Writing Toolkit: Direct Quoting, Partially Quoting, Paraphrasing

·

Writing Toolkit: What is literary analysis?

Write

Paragraph that includes:

· Topic sentence

· Explanation

· Example from selected story or poem (Summary and Paraphrase)

· Quote from selected story or poem

· Analysis of evidence

· Summary sentences bringing it all together

Check

Your writings should be:

·  About 300 words long

· Related to the readings, assignments, and/or discussions from the selected Module

· Evidence of critical thinking

You should avoid:

· Including material from anything other than the selected literary work

· Googling, researching, or looking up the story or poem

· Copy / pasting from other submissions

· Unprofessional discourse

· Conversational language (you, I, etc.)

Rubric

Setting Paragraph

Exemplary
Submitted as an MLA formatted Word document. Appropriate length (300 ish words) Internal citations. No outside sources. No first person.

16 pts

On Target
This submission met most but not all of these standards:- Submitted as Word document- MLA formatted- 200-300 words- Internal citations- No outside sources- Includes author and story names- No first or second person

10 pts

Not Yet
This submission met few of these standards:- Submitted as Word document- MLA formatted- 200-300 words- Internal citations- No outside sources- Includes author and story names

20 pts

Exemplary
Meets almost all of these standards: – Clear focus – identifies literary elements – Topic sentence leads paragraph – Paragraph includes quotes from story / poem – Paragraph includes analysis of the elements’ significance and meaning – Does not over-rely on summary – Avoids including extraneous/irrelevant details

48 pts

On Target
Meets many of these standards: – Clear focus – identifies literary elements – Topic sentence leads paragraph – Paragraph includes quotes from story / poem – Paragraph includes analysis of the elements’ significance and meaning – Does not over-rely on summary – Avoids including extraneous/irrelevant details

30 pts

Not Yet
Meets few of these standards: Meets almost all of these standards: – Clear focus – identifies literary elements – Topic sentence leads paragraph – Paragraph includes quotes from story / poem – Paragraph includes analysis of the elements’ significance and meaning – Does not over-rely on summary – Avoids including extraneous/irrelevant details

60 pts

20 pts

Setting Paragraph
Criteria	Ratings	Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeFormatting			20 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAnalysis & Content		60 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeGrammar	20 pts Clear writing with evidence of proofreading. Relatively free from errors at the sentence-level. 16 pts Mostly clear with some errors that may confuse meaning. Would benefit from additional proofreading to avoid sentence-level errors. 10 pts Errors obscure meaning. Sentences are not composed clearly. Paragraph does not demonstrate proofreading and careful revision.
Total Points: 100

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