ENC 1102 Planning Worksheet Assignment

ENC 1102 Planning Worksheet Assignment

ENC 1102
Essay #3 Planning Worksheet Instructions

Planning is a crucial step in essay writing because it helps organize your thoughts and prevents you from jumping around or repeating yourself.

To begin, you need to develop your thesis statement.
A thesis statement for an essay should be one sentence only, and you should be able to back it up

with evidence from the literary text and scholarly criticism.

To develop your thesis statement for Essay #3, you will need to first select one of following literary texts we have read. DO NOT choose the same work you wrote about in Essay #1 or Essay #2.

•   Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
•   Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”
•   Langston Hughes, “Harlem”
•   Stacey Waite, “The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV”
•   Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”
•   William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
•   Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”
•   Susan Glaspell, Trifles
•   Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek”
•   Owen Wilfred, “Dulce et Decorum Est” AND ee cummings, “next to of course god

  america I”

•   Danez Smith, “Dinosaurs in the Hood” and/or “not an elegy for Mike Brown”

  Once you have selected the literary work you want to write about, you will need to select one of the CRITICAL LENSES we have studied in this course:

•   Psychoanalysis (Deals with unconscious desires and fears and mental state)
•   Feminism
•   Historical Perspectives (How the time period or history influences the work)
•   Cultural Perspectives (How culture, social expectations, or social issues influence the

  work)

  Now that you have chosen both the literary work and the critical lens, it is time to consider your opinion. For example, let’s say that you have chosen “Dinosaurs in the Hood” and Cultural Perspectives. How does Smith criticize traditional films that feature minority casts in “Dinosaurs in the Hood?” How is the Black Lives Matter Movement reflected in “Dinosaurs in the

  Hood?” How is the concept of stereotyping used in “Dinosaurs in the Hood?”

  You may not have been asked to give your opinion on literature before, but a good collegiate- level thesis statement contains your opinion stated as if it were a fact. For example:

  I think Danez Smith criticizes the stereotypical nature of movies that use minority casts and the roles for minority actors in “Dinosaurs in the Hood.”

ENC 1102 Planning Worksheet Assignment

If we delete “I think” from the above sentence, we have a pretty good thesis statement:
Danez Smith criticizes the stereotypical nature of movies that use minority casts and the roles for minority actors in “Dinosaurs in the Hood.”

Here are some possible topics you can consider if you don’t know what to write about:

•   How Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and actions reflect the lack of power women had in their

  own lives during the time period in which the story is written (Feminism).

•   How elements of Kate Chopin’s life are reflected in “The Story of an Hour” (Historical

  and Biographical Perspectives).

•   How “The Lottery” shows the danger of blindly following tradition (Cultural

  Perspectives).

•   How the Japanese Internment Camps in America during World War II may have

  influenced “The Lottery” (Historical and Cultural Perspectives).

•   How “The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV” critiques “gender’s tidy little story about

  itself” (Cultural Perspectives).

•   How the history of segregation in America shapes our interpretation of “Harlem”

  (Historical and Cultural Perspectives).

•   Is Homer Barron gay (Cultural Perspectives)?
•   Is Miss Emily crazy, or does she know exactly what she is doing (Psychoanalysis)?
•   Is Montresor a trustworthy narrator in “The Cask of Amontillado” (Psychoanalysis)?
•   Does Montresor suffer from antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy) in “The Cask of

  Amontillado” (Psychoanalysis)?

•   How the historical women’s suffrage movement in America may have influenced Susan

  Glaspell and Trifles (Feminism).

•   The divide between the sexes in Trifles (Feminism).
•   How machismo harms women in “Woman Hollering Creek” (Feminism).
•   How Cisneros reclaims the legend of La Llarona and turns it into a feminist symbol in

  “Woman Hollering Creek” (Feminism).

•   How “Dulce et Decorum Est” uses imagery to reflect the realities of war.
•   How “next to of course god america i” provides a commentary on the idea of patriotism

  and love for one’s country (Cultural Perspectives).

•   How is the Black Lives Matter Movement reflected in “Dinosaurs in the Hood” (Cultural

  Perspectives)?

•   How is the concept of stereotyping used in “Dinosaurs in the Hood” (Cultural

  Perspectives)?

•   How is the Black Lives Matter movement reflected in “not an elegy for Mike Brown”

  (Cultural Perspectives)?

  Write your thesis statement in the box labelled Thesis.

  Next, consider what you need to discuss in the body of your essay to properly support your thesis statement. You want to decide what each body paragraph should be about.

  Let’s consider an example. Here is our pretend thesis statement: Both ee cummings and Wilfred Owen criticize the type of patriotism that sends men to war without a thorough understanding of the human costs.

What body paragraphs would we need to back up what we are saying in our thesis? There are several ways we could structure our body paragraphs, but I might suggest we think of the paper in three sections: a section on how we should interpret the criticism on patriotism in “next to of course god america i,” a section on how we should interpret the criticism in “Dulce et Decorum Est,” and a section that discusses what the two have in common. Why sections and not paragraphs? As you begin writing longer essays, you will likely have more than one body paragraph on the same topic.

ENC 1102 Planning Worksheet Assignment

From here, we can plan out our body sections. Write a topic sentence describing how the speaker in “next to of course god america i” views patriotism. Remember, a topic sentence tells your readers what the paragraph is about and how it connects to your thesis statement.

Once you have written a topic sentence for the section describing how the speaker in “next to of course god america i” views patriotism, enter it into the first box labelled “Topic Sentence.” Continue writing topic sentences for each body section and entering them into the following “Topic Sentence” boxes.

Next, it’s time to select evidence. In the first box labelled “Evidence,” write down any details or quotations from the poem that describe the speaker’s attitude towards patriotism. For example, you might quote the passage that states, “they did not stop to think they died instead / then shall the voice of liberty be mute?” (cummings 12 – 13). Don’t forget to include an in-text citation for each piece of evidence.

Now that you have evidence from the literature, you need to select evidence from your scholarly source. Remember, you must actually use (quote, paraphrase, or summarize) each source somewhere in your essay to receive credit for that source. Add evidence from your scholarly sources into the Evidence boxes. Be sure to account for each source you are required to

use. Essay #3 requires three scholarly sources.

Finally, double-click on the Conclusion box. Brainstorm what you might say in your conclusion and makes notes in this box. Try to avoid over-used, cliché endings. One great option for the conclusion is to answer the question, “So what?” Why is important that we critique patriotism that ignores the human cost of war?

ENC 1102 Planning Worksheet Assignment

Once you have notes on your conclusion, develop a creative title for your essay (not Essay #3) that suggests what your essay is about.

To submit your Essay Planning Worksheet, please follow these directions:

1. Click on Module 6 from the control panel on our Blackboard course page.
2. Click on the folder titled “Module 6 Assessments.”
3. Click on the BOLD text “M6A5 Essay #3 Planning Worksheet”
4. Under Assignment Submission, click the box titled “Browse My Computer.”
5. Select your Essay #3 Planning Worksheet from the folder you saved it to on your

   computer.

6. Click the blue box titled “Submit.”
7. You should see a confirmation screen on the next page.

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Planning Worksheet Rubric