ENGL 1302 - Dr. Roy - Fall 2025: Your Assignments!

2 ½ - 3 pages, not including the Works Cited page

Follow these instructions to write and upload your paper.

Paper 2 marks the culmination of Unit 2 in which we explored the different ways in which the stories that characters hear or believe about themselves influence their identities and relations. For this essay you will write a critical exploration of any one of the stories covered in Unit 2.

Stories to choose from:

• Adichie’s “How Did You Feel About It?”
• Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”
• Kincaid’s “Girl”
• Viramontes’s “The Moths”
• Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
• Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Your essay must focus on your interpretation of how characterization and conflict develop the story’s theme. You should include a summary of the story in your introductory paragraph, use the terminology of literary analysis as discussed in this and the previous unit, and make sure to support your analysis with textual evidence. Your introduction must end with a clear thesis statement which is your interpretation of the theme of the story and this can be done in 1-2 sentences. In your theme statements
 

1. Aim for precision
2. Don’t make meaningless generalizations about “everyone” or “people” or “no one” etc.
3. Don’t use first or second person pronouns (I, me, my, we, ours, us, you, yours, etc.)
4. Don’t moralize (for example: “Before/After” teaches that trusting others can lead to despair or disillusionment.
This statement is a moral.) Morals teach lessons. The stories in this course don’t offer moral lessons. They are profound explorations of the human condition. They ask questions about what it means to be human. This brings me to …
5. Themes pose important questions about the human condition.
 

Think of theme statements as either a cause-and-effect relationship or the posing of an important life question or a universal struggle that the central character undergoes.
 

Questions to consider as you write Paper 2:
What is the main character’s key personality traits? What new perspective does the protagonist gain? Why is this perspective important? How does the writer of the story use the main character's experience to highlight the theme?
 

What are the different conflicts you see at play in the story (mother vs. daughter, stability v adventure, individualism v conformity, tradition v change, feminine vs masculine, sanity v insanity, creative freedom v the rest cure, etc.)? What causes the conflicts? Are the conflicts tied to practices and processes like culture, race, class, age, gender? What is the central conflict? Are any of the conflicts resolved? Why or why not?
 

Research Requirement
You will use at least two secondary sources (not including the primary text you are writing about) of literary criticism from the ACC library databases. Include appropriate in-text citations and a Works Cited list in accordance with MLA guidelines. Finding trustworthy sources and documenting them properly is important to this assignment.
You should review the sample essay for an example of excellent research and documentation. In addition,
remember the ACC Library guide to MLA:

• Go to the ACC Library web page (library.austincc.edu)
• Click on “Citing Sources” (in blue/purple bar halfway down the page)
• Choose MLA Documentation, 9th Edition Style

Quick review of how MLA Documentation works: When you borrow information from a source (whether you have summarized, paraphrased, or quoted it), provide the name of the source (either in your sentence or in parentheses at the end of the sentence) and the page number if there is one (in parentheses). In the parentheses (called the “in-text citation”), be sure to provide the word that is used to alphabetize the source in your Works Cited list (90% of the time it’s an author’s name, but when there is no author, you’ll alphabetize the source by the title of the article or web page). For example, say you have an article by Priya Singh from Studies in Short Fiction a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, and an article with no author from the Gale Literature Criticism database. Here is how you could cite these sources in the body of your essay:
 

• According to an article in Studies in Short Fiction, “quote quote” (Singh 336).
• Literary critic Priya Singh in her article “Collapsing the Real and the Unreal in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,” reports that paraphrase paraphrase (336). 
• An article in the Gale Literature Criticism database explains that magical realism is a powerful tool for social critique in Helena Maria Viramontes’s short story “The Moths”: “quote quote” (“Magical Realism”). 

Since the first source is by Singh and is alphabetized under “S” in the Works Cited list, you must give Singh’s name either in your sentence (first example) or in parentheses at the end of the sentence (second example). Since the Gale source has no author, it is listed in the Works Cited list by its title, so in your in-text citation, you give the first words of this title: “Magical Realism.”
 

Format: Use 12- or 11-point standard font (preferably Times New Roman), double-spacing, and 1-inch margins. You may skip a few lines to add the Works Cited entry at the bottom; you do not need to put it on a separate page. Add the course information along with your name, my name, and the date in the top left-hand corner of the first page. Be sure to have a moderately informative title that expresses the theme/thesis of your paper. Your title must mention the author and the story’s title that you are analyzing in your paper. Look at the sample paper to get a sense of how to do this. You do not need a separate title page. Look at the sample paper attached below (Sample Paper 2 LAG.pdf) to ensure you are formatting your paper correctly. All sources must be properly cited in MLA format.

Your essay should be free of mechanical, grammatical, and spelling errors. You should utilize a variety of sentence structures and word choices as well as transitional phrases and sentences. Use the third person point of view only. Use examples from the text to support your ideas in the form of quotes as well as paraphrases, in-text MLA citations, and a Works Cited page at the end. Works Cited entries should be arranged in alphabetical order from A-Z with author last name first. Entries must be double spaced with hanging indents.
 

You must have quotes so that I can see that you understand the basic mechanics of quoting. You should have between 1-2 solid quotes that really support your argument, in each body paragraph. Don’t quote in the intro paragraph and the conclusion. Be sure to use a variety of signal phrases and lead-ins to introduce your quotes; and follow up the quote and/or paraphrase with an in-text citation. You must explain how the quote relates to your argument. Resources to help you integrate quotes into your argument:

• Integrating Quotations in MLA Style
• Quoting and Citing Guidelines

Do not use any of the words/phrases on the Kiss of Death list.

*A word about word counts—word counts and page counts are guidelines. Don’t fall under the page count limit but don’t exceed the limit either. Quality is always of greater concern than quantity, but quality means well- developed writing. On the other hand, papers that greatly exceed the word/page count are often the product of poor revising and editing. More is not better in this case! Students are expected with a critical eye to revise and edit their own work prior to submission.

English 1302, Paper 4: Research Paper and Analysis of Point of View, Setting, and Symbolism

Due date is marked in the relevant assessment folder on Blackboard.

Length: 3 1/2 - 4 pages, not including the Works Cited page(s).

For the final paper you will write about Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. You will use the primary sources (the novel) as well as literary criticism (through the ACC Library website) and author interviews (in the Unit 4, Week 13 folder) to write your paper.

You must have at least four external sources, two of which must be literary criticism from college-level reference sources located in the ACC Library databases. Of the four external sources, two of them must be The Missouri Review interview and the other one must be a YouTube interview of the author. So, in all you will have at least five entries in your Works Cited page: 1. The novella 2. The Missouri Review interview 3. One of the YouTube interviews 4. A literary critical article from the databases 5. Another piece of literary criticism from the databases.

You may not use the literary criticism that is mentioned in the student sample paper. The purpose of this assignment is to make you independent researchers so please don’t piggyback off of the articles that are in the sample paper. Do your own research!! Believe me, there is plenty of information about this novella in the ACC library databases. You won’t find it hard to locate scholarly articles.

Write your paper as per the guidelines suggested below.

• View or listen to a filmed interview with the author and read the print interview of her in The Missouri Review, as she discusses the artistic, geographic, and thematic contexts of her novel and her craft. These interviews may be found in the Week 13 folder on our Blackboard course page, if you are in the 16-week session, or the Week Nine folder If you are in the 12-week session. You must use The Missouri Review interview and at least one of the taped interviews to help support the academic argument(s) you make in your paper.

• Write an introduction (mention the author and novel; give a brief summary, no more than 3-4 sentences). End the introductory paragraph with a thesis statement that indicates your interpretation of the theme of the novel. Your thesis is your interpretation of the story's main theme. Your thesis may consist of several sentences. The intro para should be about 100-150 words.

• Review the literary criticism you found through ACC’s library databases. Use the information from these articles and the following three elements of fiction, POINT OF VIEW, SETTING, AND SYMBOLISM, to analyze the novel. In the body of your paper, you will describe the affects that these elements of fiction produce and how they shape or support the novel’s themes. You must use the literary criticism to support your analysis of the three elements of fiction.

•  Conclude the paper by discussing the theme(s) of the novel and include an overall assessment of the novel supported by the literary criticism articles and/or the interviews.

• Always support your insights and assertions with examples from the text, the literary criticism articles, and the author interviews.

• Cite all primary and secondary material you use in your paper in a Works Cited section that immediately follows the end of the paper (no need to start it on a new page). This Works Cited page will cite your stories (primary texts), literary criticism, and author interviews. When you quote from, paraphrase, or summarize the story, article, or interview, use MLA in-text citations.

• The purpose of the Works Cited page is to collect all of the sources used in your essay and to arrange them in a particular way so they are easy for me to locate. Every entry in your Works Cited page should match up with an integrated citation in the body of your paper. If I do not see this in your essay then you cannot expect to receive a passing grade on the final paper.

• You must use quotes from the primary text (The House on Mango Street) as well as from the secondary sources (literary criticism, author interviews), throughout your paper. You must have two really strong quotes in each body paragraph to support your argument. Most importantly, the quotes should make sense and not just be window dressing. Don’t overuse quotes and don’t use blocked quotes as these drown out your voice/argument. Be judicious and sensible with use of quoted material! Always integrate quotes correctly using MLA guidelines. The quote must be a seamless part of the paragraph and the overall argument you are making in the paper.

• Resources to help you integrate quotes into your argument:

Integrating Quotations in MLA Style

Quoting and Citing Guidelines

• How to cite videos: https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/MLA9/videos

• To cite two or more works by the same author – which you will have to do because Cisneros will be listed as the author for both the novella as well as the YouTube interview, give the name in the first entry only. Thereafter, in place of the name, type three hyphens, followed by a period and the title. The three hyphens stand for exactly the same name as in the preceding entry. See this: Citation Guide- MLA: Citing Multiple Sources by the Same Author

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER AS YOU THINK ABOUT POINT OF VIEW, SETTING, AND SYMBOLISM (use these questions to guide you as you write your analysis):

1. What person point of view are the stories told from? Reliable and objective or not? Neutral? What does the point of view reveal about the characters, their motives, emotions, personality traits, etc.? How limited are the narrator’s perceptions? What limits the narrator’s perceptions? Why does the narrator choose certain language, report the details that she/he does, reveal the characters in the manner that she/he does, offer or not offer interpretive comments, and/or tell the story in a certain order? Does the narrative voice create irony (dramatic, situational, verbal)?

2. Why did the author choose this particular setting for the story? How is physical setting described? Does the description shed light on any other elements (character, conflict, etc.)? Could the setting be symbolic of something else? How does setting influence plot or characters? Does the setting establish a mood or atmosphere? Setting includes time period, history, geographical location, milieu, the entire cultural environment in which the story is set. Setting has physical, social, and figurative aspects.

3. What dominant symbols do you notice in the story? What do they mean in the overall context of the plot, characterization, conflict, point of view, or any of the other elements? Choose at least ONE significant symbol from the novella and analyze what it signifies.