Overview
The Five-Paragraph Writing Exercise asks you to put into conversation with one another two works, among several options, that present the same topic, theme, or motif. By juxtaposing texts that possess a shared element, we can sharpen our perception of how each work differently handles that topic, theme, or motif. Differences in form necessarily give rise to differences in meaning. Differences in meaning make for differences in ideational content, the commentary a work offers (on society, ethics, concepts, etc.). Please note that, like the Three-Paragraph Writing Exercise, the format of this assignment is quite different than that of the traditional thesis-driven essay, so read the directions below for how to structure it very carefully.
Learning Objectives
In this writing assignment, you will be able to
- Contrast two of our readings that share a similar topic to more effectively develop an interpretation of each work
- Analyze a literary works handling of a particular topic in relation to their supernatural and anti-mimetic elements
- Compose effective literary analyses of two of our readings; to do this, you will be able to
- Select textual or narrative details that help extend your analysis
- Demonstrate that you can effectively situate textual and/or narrative details in your writing
- Develop close readings of textual or narrative details in order to elaborate or further flesh out your analysis
- Provide topic sentences that conceptually frame the subsequent discussion and, if it isn’t self-evident, make explicit the relation between the overarching interpretive question and the content of the paragraph
- Integrate your paragraphs using transitions and stitching between them so that the exercise feels like a single extended discussion
General Instructions
Format: Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, double spaced, default margins
Heading: Use the prompt that you choose to respond to as your heading (see below for your options)
Length: five paragraphs; each paragraph should be at minimum 250-350 words
Citations: Use MLA in-text citations for textual and narrative evidence; you do not have to include bibliographic information if you are using the assigned version posted in or linked through Canvas or, for standalone texts, the edition identified in the syllabus.
Specific Instructions
How to Structure the Exercise
Please Note: You should not include an introductory paragraph.
Paragraphs 1-4
- Dedicate 2 paragraphs to eachwork (for a total of 4). Save any directly comparative analysis for your fifth paragraph.
- Use a topic sentencefor each paragraph that identifies a subtopic that will help you to differentiate the works in relation to your overarching topic. A topic sentence should conceptually frame your discussion and make clear, if it isn’t self-evident, how it relates to your overarching topic.
- Your narrative or textual evidence should be well situated for your reader.
- Each of your four paragraphs should include a close reading of either a single longer passage (i.e. a detailed analysis of the language of that passage) or two-to-three concrete and specific narrative or textual details (i.e. an analysis that braids together these details). In either case, your close reading should explain what this evidence reveals about the subtopic and how that helps us to better understand the overarching topic within the work. Nuanced or counterintuitive yet persuasive interpretive analyses (i.e. ones that aren’t fairly obvious) will be the most highly valued.
- At the end of each of your four paragraphs, you should draw a convincing inference, based on the close reading you’ve performed within that paragraph, as to the broader idea or social commentary the work offers us. In other words, how does the narrative’s specific handling of the subtopic you’ve discussed contribute to its ideational content (i.e. the statement it makes in symbolic form about the world, a concept, humanity, etc.)?
Paragraph 5
This paragraph will involve three steps and will likely be the longest of your five paragraphs (since you’ll discuss both literary works in it).
- For each text, synthesize your set of paragraphs on that work. Based on what you said about each work’s ideational content in the two paragraphs dedicated to it, what is its overarching take on this topic? That is to say, what broader idea or commentary does it offer on that topic
- Next, further elaborate the conclusion that you’ve drawn for each work by putting them into conversation with one another. In other words, what’s further revealed by contrasting the two works in relation to the shared topic, theme, or motif?
- Finally, add a further twist by very briefly considering how the unlikely as it appears in each work impacts the broader idea on the topic that you’ve identified for each. Or, alternatively, you could respond to the question of why, in each work, this ideational content is delivered in a narrative with unlikely or speculative aspects.
Prompt Options
- How is the racial metamorphosis differently handled in “Mars Jeems’s Nightmare” and Blackass? What does this difference in handling suggest about the racial politics that each work engages in?
Rubric
Five-Paragraph Writing Exercise (1)
| Five-Paragraph Writing Exercise (1) | |||||||
| Criteria | Ratings | Pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraphs 1-4: Topic Sentences Each of your paragraphs should open by conceptually framing the subsequent discussion and, if it isn’t self-evident, by making explicit the relation between the overarching interpretive question and the content of the paragraph. |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraphs 1-4: Selection of Textual and/or Narrative Details The textual and/or narrative details that you identify in each paragraph should be relevant to the topic at hand. For textual details, you quote only what is relevant to your discussion. For narrative details, you are concrete and specific in conveying them. You do not leave out any critical textual or narrative details that contradict or otherwise undercut your account of the text. |
|
16 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraphs 1-4: Situate Textual or Narrative Details You set up any textual or narrative details that you plan to use as evidence with a brief description of where they occur in the literary work. You make clear who the speaker is if you quote a character and to whom they are speaking. |
|
12 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 1: Close Reading of Textual or Narrative Details You develop a sophisticated and convincing account of a literary work’s internal logic. In discussing events in a narrative’s plot, its characters, or its symbols and motifs, you flesh out or complicate our understanding of the literary work’s form or its fictional world, revealing aspects of the text that are not, one hopes, immediately obvious and are, ideally, surprising or counterintuitive. For quotations (beyond a sentence or two), you break down the language of the passage not merely to confirm an interpretive claim but to further elaborate that claim. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 1: Ideational Inference You close your paragraph by drawing convincing inference, based on the close reading you’ve performed within that paragraph, as to the broader idea or social commentary the work offers us. In other words, how does the narrative’s specific handling of the subtopic you’ve discussed contribute to its ideational content (i.e. the statement it makes in symbolic form about the world, a concept, humanity, etc.)? |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 2: Close Reading of Textual or Narrative Details You develop a sophisticated and convincing account of a literary work’s internal logic. In discussing events in a narrative’s plot, its characters, or its symbols and motifs, you flesh out or complicate our understanding of the literary work’s form or its fictional world, revealing aspects of the text that are not, one hopes, immediately obvious and are, ideally, surprising or counterintuitive. For quotations (beyond a sentence or two), you break down the language of the passage not merely to confirm an interpretive claim but to further elaborate that claim. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 2: Ideational Inference You close your paragraph by drawing convincing inference, based on the close reading you’ve performed within that paragraph, as to the broader idea or social commentary the work offers us. In other words, how does the narrative’s specific handling of the subtopic you’ve discussed contribute to its ideational content (i.e. the statement it makes in symbolic form about the world, a concept, humanity, etc.)? |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 3: Close Reading of Textual or Narrative Details You develop a sophisticated and convincing account of a literary work’s internal logic. In discussing events in a narrative’s plot, its characters, or its symbols and motifs, you flesh out or complicate our understanding of the literary work’s form or its fictional world, revealing aspects of the text that are not, one hopes, immediately obvious and are, ideally, surprising or counterintuitive. For quotations (beyond a sentence or two), you break down the language of the passage not merely to confirm an interpretive claim but to further elaborate that claim. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 3: Ideational Inference You close your paragraph by drawing convincing inference, based on the close reading you’ve performed within that paragraph, as to the broader idea or social commentary the work offers us. In other words, how does the narrative’s specific handling of the subtopic you’ve discussed contribute to its ideational content (i.e. the statement it makes in symbolic form about the world, a concept, humanity, etc.)? |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 4: Close Reading of Textual or Narrative Details You develop a sophisticated and convincing account of a literary work’s internal logic. In discussing events in a narrative’s plot, its characters, or its symbols and motifs, you flesh out or complicate our understanding of the literary work’s form or its fictional world, revealing aspects of the text that are not, one hopes, immediately obvious and are, ideally, surprising or counterintuitive. For quotations (beyond a sentence or two), you break down the language of the passage not merely to confirm an interpretive claim but to further elaborate that claim. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 4: Ideational Inference You close your paragraph by drawing convincing inference, based on the close reading you’ve performed within that paragraph, as to the broader idea or social commentary the work offers us. In other words, how does the narrative’s specific handling of the subtopic you’ve discussed contribute to its ideational content (i.e. the statement it makes in symbolic form about the world, a concept, humanity, etc.)? |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 5: Synthesis For each literary work, you effectively and persuasively synthesize the ideational content (i.e. the inference that you made) that you identified in your two paragraphs on that text. That is, you explain how these two paragraphs contribute to a single idea–preferably a complex or sophisticated one–about your topic. To be clear, you are NOT to synthesize all four paragraphs into a single claim. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 5: Juxtaposition In directly contrasting them, you identify at least one thing that is further revealed about the difference between ideational content (i.e. their commentary on the topic) expressed by the works. |
|
8 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeParagraph 5: Add a Twist You add a further twist to your discussion of each literary work by responding to either the question of how the unlikely aspect of each narrative contributes to its ideational content or the question of why its an effective vehicle for its commentary on your paper’s topic. |
|
18 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeIntegrated Paragraphs You effectively use transitions and stitching between your paragraphs so that the exercise feels like a single extended discussion. |
|
6 pts | |||||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeClarity, Grammar, Usage Your sentences clearly express your ideas, and you avoid errors of grammar and usage. |
|
10 pts | |||||
| Total Points: 200 | |||||||
5 Paragraph