CASEBOOK GUIDELINES

After you have selected your four critical essays representing four different critical approaches, you should write a one to two page introduction to each essay.  In this introduction, you should do the following three things:

1. 1.  Summarize the writer’s argument.  This summary does not mean that you say, “Ms ------talks about the role of women in this essay.”  Instead, you must indicate WHAT she says about women’s roles.  What is the writer’s thesis?   In this part of your introduction, you should also identify the type of criticism being practiced.  If the writer uses more than one approach, you should also indicate that fact.

2. Evaluate the quality of the essay—the quality of the argument, the writing, the organization, and the originality of the insights.  Does the writer prove his/her point(s)?  Does the essay teach the reader something?  Does the writer make assumptions about reader knowledge, or does the writer explain things that need to be explained?

3. Justify your inclusion of this essay.  Why did you choose this essay over others of the same type?  What about the argument struck you as particularly insightful?  Was the essay easier to follow than some others of the same type?  If one of the essays you chose was the only one of a particular type that you found, you may indicate that; but its solitariness should not be the only reason for including a particular essay.