Thesis Statement For Literary Essay

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Read: “Your Thesis Statement” in the Module One Resourcesfolder. For more detailed information, read “Draft and Revise a Thesis Statement” on pages 14-19 in Rules for Writers, 8th edition.

Directions:

  1. Choose one of the topics and approaches provided for you.
  2. Write a working thesis statement for the topic and approach you chose. Your thesis statement must be an analysis, not just a statement of fact about the novel.
  3. Your professor must approve your thesis statement. If you did not receive at least a 70, you need to revise. You are permitted three attempts in this assignment, and the highest grade will be recorded.

 Click on A1.1 Step 1: Thesis Statement for Literary Essay to begin.

Your Thesis Statement for the Novel Disgrace

Like any paper you have ever written for a first-year composition course, you must have a specific, detailed thesis statement that reveals your perspective. When writing about literature, your perspective must be one which is not overtly obvious. In this folder you will find a page titled “Choose One Topic and Approach.”  You will find several topics and approaches to choose from, but you will write your own thesis statement. When deciding on your thesis, pay attention to what to do/not to do here:

You would not want to write a thesis like this:

J. M. Coetzee’s novel, Disgrace takes place in post-apartheid South Africa.

That doesn’t say anything. Basically, it only states a fact about the story. It does not go beyond the obvious. Also what is not acceptable is the following:

Disgrace, a novel by J. M. Coetzee, traces a white middle-class professor as he faces disgrace for having sex with a student.

That doesn’t say much either. It is merely a one-sentence summary of the novel’s plot.

A better thesis would be something like this:

J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace suggests that the white professor’s disgrace reflects the disgrace and shame of whites in post-apartheid South Africa. 

That is debatable, maybe even controversial. Some scholars might disagree with the above statement. If your thesis statement is not completely debatable, it should at least make a statement that is not obvious, seeing the work in a different way through thought and discovery.

For more details on writing a good thesis statement, check your handbook Rules for Writers and read “Draft and revise a working thesis statement“ pages 14-19.

 
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The New Cosmopolitan Empires of the Sui and Tang

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The New Cosmopolitan Empires of the Sui and Tang

· In the late 500s CE, China was a set of warring states vying for political control

· Loosely divided into the northern and southern dynasties

 

(Map based on “The Divisions of China, 535-560 A.D” (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in Albert Herrmann’s History and Commercial Atlas of China via Wikimedia)

· A commander called Yang Jian unified the north, married his daughter to the heir to the Zhou Dynasty, and had much of the Zhou family murdered –> all of which solidified his power (“Sui Dynasty (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” from Ancient History Encyclopedia)

· Once Jian was in control of the north, he renamed it Sui and then marched on the south. He conquered its capital by 589 CE and named himself Emperor Wendi

· Fun fact: the story of Mulan from Disney dates to the Sui Dynasty

· Why significant? Because…

· It moved the capital from Nanjing (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in the south to Chang’an (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. in the north. As a result, people moved across the country

· It resulted in building a canal between the Yangzi and the Yellow Rivers, and thereby provided “a crucial means to transport goods and people between the north and the south, reconnecting territory that had been divided for more than three centuries” (Norton 1284)

· The Sui Dynasty was overthrown by a provincial governor called Li-Yuan, who then established the Tang Dynasty

· The Tang Dynasty (618 CE – 907 CE) is remembered for cultural achievements, expansion, and innovation

· Culture:  the capital city of Chang’an was a cosmopolitan center in which people from many different nationalities and religions mingled. As a result…

·  “The people of Chang’an quickly adopted new hairstyles, new games such as polo, and new musical instruments, importing exotic melodies and dances from China’s Central Asian ‘West” (Norton 1285)

· Expansion.: “Particularly important was the expansion to the northwest and control of the trade routes to the west” (Norton1285)

· Innovation: tea became a commercial crop (traded from China to East Asia), the Zen school of Buddhism, and… The invention of the mechanical printing press

· “A printed copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, dated 868, is considered the world’s oldest printed book” (Norton 1285)

· The Tang period is also remembered for its poetry –> in fact, the civil service examination required that government officials become proficient in composing poetry! (Norton 1285)

· Prose fiction–or writing in a paragraph style about something not true–also became popular. Yuan Zhen’s, “The Story of Yingying” is an example of prose fiction from this time period

Some Considerations Regarding “The Story of Yingying”

· We read The Analects in Module 2 as an example of philosophical writing during the Ming Dynasty. I.e.,The Analects are written in the form of conversations that have been recorded or like anecdotes (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

· What do you get out of reading something told as a “non-fiction” conversation or anecdote? Is it more or less believable?

· As you read in the PPT, “The Story of Yingying” features a very different kind of writing. Not only is it fictional, it also contains multiple forms of writing styles, including prose narration, a letter, and two kinds of poetry

· This style gives the readers (you & me!) a chance to peek into the characters’ psychological motives –> which is a quality that is absent in writing like The Analects

· Think about the following: how much more do you “know” the characters in “The Story of Yingying” as compared to Gilgamesh in The Epic of Gilgamesh or disciples in The Analects?

· More food for thought: is Zhang vile for leaving Miss Cui or was he right to leave her? Why or why not?

· It might help to consider the Confucian value system (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., as China was they were still influential when Zhen wrote “The Story of Yingying”

 

(scene from Romance of the Western Chamber (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., an opera inspired by “The Story of Yingying” via Wikimedia)

 

Watch these video：

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFpGLzCEMaQ&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgqHwBdsXw&feature=youtu.be

 
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“The Essentialist Roots of the Public Sphere: A Feminist Critique.

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I. Take a look at each of the examples below.  You will find sufficient information to place the items in proper APA reference form.  Below each entry, give the appropriate reference form.

1. In 1996, the Western Journal of Communication (volume 60, issue one) published an article
by C. L. Griffin called “The Essentialist Roots of the Public Sphere: A Feminist Critique.” This
article appeared on pages 21 through 39. As with nearly all scholarly journals, this
publication paginates continuously through each volume.

2.  Joseph A. DeVito’s eighth edition of Human Communication: The Basic Course was published
in the year 2000 by Longman, the well-known New York publishing house.

 

3.  Allyn and Bacon published a work called Handbook of Rhetorical and Communication Theory
by C. C. Arnold and John Waite Bowers. This work was published in Boston in 1984.

 

4. Joe Ayers, T. Hopf, and D. M. Ayres published an article in the fourth issue of the forty-third
edition of Communication Education in 1994. The piece appeared on pages 252-58 and was
called “An Examination of Whether Imaging Ability Enhances the Effectiveness of an
Intervention Designed to Reduce Speech Anxiety.” This journal paginates continuously

through each year’s volume.

5. The revised edition of a very influential book called Applied Imagination was published by
Scribner’s, in New York City in 1957.  It was written by A. Osborn and presented a theory of
“brainstorming.”

II. Look over this list of references, as if it were a references page from a research article. Make corrections to the citation, including spacing, punctuation, eliminating unnecessary information, or re-ordering the references. You can assume that all spellings are accurate; all the information needed to correct the references is provided. No outside materials are necessary to complete this exercise.

Works cited

Balagura, Steve. (1968). “Influence of Osmotic and Caloric Loads Upon Lateral Hypothalamic Self-Stimulation” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 66, 325-328.

Abel, S. E., Fox, P. T., Potley, J. R. (1997). Insights from recent positron emission  tomographic studies of drug abuse and dependence. Current Opinion in Psychiatry,

19(3), 246-252.

Abel, S.E., Fox, P.T., Posner, J.P. (1998). Positron emission tomographic studies of the cortical anatomy of single word processing. Nature, 331, pp. 585-589.

Codon, D. E. (1994, January 10). Kids growing up scared. Newsweek, volume 73, issue 3, pp. 43-49.

Klatzky, R. L. (1980). Human Memory: Structures and Processes (Second Edition). Friedman: San Francisco, CA.

Swaminathan, N. (2007). Eating Disorders. Psychology today website Psychologytoday.com. Found on 11/13/07.

 
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Coppola’s student essay

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Read Coppola’s student essay, “To Fish and Be Fished” in the CEL Ch. 3 (p. 70-75). Then, read the section on “Point of Contact” in the CEL Ch. 3 (p.76-78).  (attached as pdf)

We are moving in this unit towards writing about things we experience “in the moment” — working from our observations on moments that are unscripted.  As you read over Coppola’s essay on the Tinder app, think about how her observations on using Tinder have prepared her to write sections in her essay like this one: “When I match with another use, I get a ‘congratulations’ popup message as if I’d just done something worthy of celebrating” (72). Notice how Coppola takes the time to reflect on the strangeness of the app “celebrating” her matches, whether or not they are appropriate to Coppola herself.

Gaining insight into the the significance of habits like “dating through apps” requires us to notice, observe, and think critically about routines and relationships that we take part in.

Instructions

For this writing activity, think about some of the daily routines and relationships that shape your life. Using the “Point of Contact” questions on p.77 as a guide, write down 2-3 ideas of places, relationships, businesses, or specific people that you can observe for a length of time in preparation for the Unit 3 assignment. Keep in mind that your observations may need to be designed around your current circumstances — perhaps by walking around your neighborhood or observing people online if you cannot get access to the XXX campus or other sites you might be interested in visiting.

After you write down 2-3 specific ideas, choose the one place or person that you feel most interested in writing about, and respond to the following questions:

  • What is the place or person?
  • Why is this place or person significant? Why do you think audiences would be interested in your observations of this person or place?
  • How will you observe this person or place? When will you make your observations? What plans will you have to make for travel or access to the people or places? How will you have to modify your plans around your current circumstances?
  • What are 2-3 next steps you can take?

Respond to these questions in at least one paragraph of 150-200 words. You do not have to answer each of these questions word for word in a separate paragraph, but your response overall should show that you are considering all of the questions above.

 
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