Instructions 
Read the play of your choice from the text.  As supplementary reading, please consult "Shakespeare and the Globe Theater," "An Overview of Tragedy," and "Shakespeare's Tragedies." Write a brief essay on one of the following topics:

a) The Nature of Evil in Hamlet
b) The Woman's Voice in Macbeth
c) The Failure of Pride in King Lear
d) Irony as an Element of Control in Othello

Structure of the Essay
The paper should be organized as a traditional thesis-support essay. The thesis should make a claim about the element you select from the list above. Here's an example:  While he seems to fulfill the first, second, and fourth stages of the "Initiation" cycle, because he rejects transformation, Young Goodman Brown is a fool.

Content of the Essay 
Assuming the familiarity of the reader with the story, the essay should avoid a summary of the narrative line and focus on supporting the thesis. Use short quotations worked into the text of your own analytical sentences to provide support for the paragraphs. You may also bring into the discussion any relevant outside information as long as you cite the source within your paragraphs. Each topic sentence should be a claim that adds support to your thesis. 

For further information, see "Standards for Writing and Evaluating Literary Essays." 

Sample Essay
You will find in this site a sample essay to give you a better idea about how to organize and develop your paper. Click here to go to the sample essay. 

Format of the Essay 
The essay should be three to four pages long, making use of short quotations from the literature in support of your observations.  Key-in the essay into the computer and save it to your floppy disks. Each line should be double- spaced with only a single double space between each paragraph. Block only those quotations longer than four lines of your text.

Criteria for Grading
Your paper will be graded according to the following standards:

1) Development - Does the essay satisfactorily develop the thesis and meet the minimum page requirement? 
2) Organization - Does the essay reflect the thesis-support format? 
3) Use of Source - Does the essay make use of important supporting passages in the short story? Are all references to the store correctly documented?
4) Style - Does the essay reflect diction and syntax appropriate to a literary analysis? 
5) Correctness - Does the essay reflect mastery of basic writing conventions (spelling, punctuation, grammar, usage)?
6) Timely submission - papers submitted past the weekend of the week in which they are due may not be revised.  Papers submitted on time may be revised only at the discretion of the instructor.

Revision of Papers
At the discretion of the instructor, revisions on no more than two essays will be accepted.  The final grade on an exercise will be determined by a simple average between the original grade and the revised grade.  Students should first request permission to submit a revision before completing any revision on an exercise.  Unsolicited revisions of any exercise will be automatically deleted.  No revisions will be accepted during or after the last week of the semester.

Submission Assignments
Distance-learning students must e-mail papers as attached Microsoft Word files only to Dr. Grimes at ggrimes@dcccd.edu. Essays are due by the end of the week in which they are posted (see the Weekly Schedule).

Submission Assignments through Regular Mail
Mail papers to:

Submitting Essays as E-Mail Attachments
It is absolutely essential to the security of your work that you follow exactly these guidelines:

1) Heading on Assignments
Place a heading on the first page of your essay in the upper left-hand corner.  The heading must include the following information:

First Name-Middle Initial-Last Name
DCCCD Student ID Number
Course-Course Number-Section Number
Month-Date-Year
Name of Assignment

Example:

John R. Pointer
ID 5555555
English 2326: 9543
February 20, 2001
Exercise 3

2) File Name
Save your file exactly according to this model:

JPointer-Ex3

3) Sending Me E-mail Messages
You must include your name and identify your message type in the subject line of each e-mail you send me.  For security reasons, if you fail to do so, I will delete your message without responding.

In the subject line, include your name and exercise number just as you saved your file above.
Example:

JPointer-Ex3

If you are sending me a message that needs immediate attention, then include one of the following formats in the subject line:

JPointer-Question
JPointer-Comment
JPointer-Urgent

Responding to Your E-mails
I always respond to your messages.  However, I always open "Question," "Comment," and "Urgent"  messages first and respond to them usually on the day I receive them. 

I will respond to your assignment messages within a day or two to let you know that I have received your work and files and whether or not I can open them.  To grade them, I open assignment messages in the order in which I received them.

Length of Time Required to Grade Your Work
It usually takes me from one to two weeks to grade essay-length papers and to return them.  Shorter papers I can grade much quicker.  I will return them as e-mail attachments to my response messages.

(Top)

This page was last modified on September 5, 2003,
and is maintained by Dr. Geoffrey Grimes.
.

.