Major British Authors

English 203

Argumentative Paper

Due Date: Friday, April 22, 5:00, via turnitin.com

Assignment:

Building upon the writing we’ve been working on all semester, your final “Argumentative Paper” will be simply an expanded version of what you’ve done for your three analytical Passage Papers.   For this longer assignment (6-7pages), you will analyze primary texts, review and examine research, in order to build an argument about a work of literature.  To accomplish this, you may choose one of three possible options:

•     Option 1: Build upon earlier work.  Choosing one of the three papers you've already written, you will now build that draft into a far different paper.  Your thesis may be completely different than
      what you started with, but beginning with some thoughts you've already had could be very helpful.

•     Option 2: Choose one the following questions and write an argumentative essay, incorporating analysis and outside research to specifically answer the question:               

  1)                      To what extent does Malory's "Morte D'Arthur" capture late, significant elements of Middle English literature?

  2)                      In what ways does Alexander Pope accomplish his social criticism in Rape of the Lock? To what extent does he succeed?

  3)           Does Samuel Johnson’s literary criticism fulfill what Pope defines as an ideal critic? To what extent?

  4)           Choosing two poems we've not covered in class, how Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads reflects a departure from eighteenth-century poetics?  To what extent is it a departure?

  5)           Choosing  just a few stanzas, how does Tennyson’s In Memoriam reflect the social crises of the Victorian period?

   

•     Option 3: Choose a work we’ve not examined in class by an author we have studied, and write an argument in which you analyze a significant aspect of the work, perhaps opposing the argument
      of work of scholarship you've researched.  (You must get approval for option 3).

Remember, this IS YOUR PAPER.  Make your argument.  Although you are incorporating research, that does NOT mean this is mean to be a book report--where you simply document others' points of view.

Research requirement:

In English 203, each student is required to have written a paper that incorporates secondary research.  Therefore, for this paper, go to JSTOR, INFO TRAC ONEFile, or any of the other databases through the Dacus Library Webpage, and incorporate at least three articles that directly or indirectly address your text.

***Be sure to use proper MLA documentation (we will go over that in class).