Sign In
Not register? Register Now!
Pages:
4 pages/≈1100 words
Sources:
Check Instructions
Style:
MLA
Subject:
Literature & Language
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
Document:
MS Word
Date:
Total cost:
$ 14.4
Topic:

English analysis Literature & Language Essay Research

Essay Instructions:

Instructions The goal of this essay is to home in on the close reading skills we have been developing during our classes and developing a way to write about someone else’s argument. Your assignment is to analyze the relationship between slave autobiographies, fiction, and “flooding” in Toni Morrison’s “The Site of Memory”. The focus of this essay will not be to insert your own original argument about memory and history, but to critically analyze how Toni Morrison develops her argument throughout the essay and how her writing about these terms tracks her argument. What are the claims that she makes across the essay? How do they develop from each point that she makes? Why are these important and significant contributions to studying cultural identity? You are welcome to approach the writing in whatever style you want to practice but remember that all excellent writing of any style does not stray away from the foundations of supporting a great argument. Each of our essays will scaffold previous essays and skills we develop to arrive at the final assignment for this class which is an academic research paper. Before we begin to make our own claims about cultural objects in the world, this essay will focus on understanding how someone else’s cohesive analytical argument is put together and what analysis does. Some goals for this essay: • No five paragraph essays. Ideas are complex and the room you need to expand on them are more flexible than 3 body paragraphs fenced in by an introduction and conclusion. Use this opportunity to explore how paragraphs help you organized content differently and more efficiently. • While you cannot necessarily have an original thesis or argument in this essay since we’re analyzing someone else’s argument, your essay will communicate what Toni Morrison’s thesis is. What is her argument? Even though this assignment analyzes a single essay, you are still expected to utilize either the MLA eighth edition or Chicago seventeenth edition citation styles for all in-text quotations and provide a bibliography at the end of your paper. Any paper that does not follow proper citation style will be considered improperly formatted at best, or plagiarism at worst. Copying someone else’s work and ideas without properly referencing them is a serious offense, intentionally or unintentionally and can have serious consequences. You will submit your essay as a Word document (.docx) to the class dropbox folder titled “ENG 110 - Essay 1”. The submitted document should have one inch margins, twelve point font (Times New Roman, Georgia, Calibri), page numbers, your name, word count, and an attached bibliography. Your paper is expected to be in the dropbox folder by 11:59:59 PM on March 3 rd. You can expect feedback and grades on your essays back two weeks after their due date. Draft 1 (Due February 24th Midnight) Before the final due date for the essay in March 3rd, we will focus on getting a rough working draft of this essay due by February 24th submitted to my email. Drafting and revision are perhaps the most important parts of the writing process and we will focus on getting a rough draft completed for a class so we can work out revision together; no one gets the essay right in Some Advice for This Essay You only have 1300 – 1500 words, the best practice for this essay will be to avoid over summarizing or describing the essay in your writing. This does not mean you should not summarize or describe anything from the essay, but you should try to be strategic when you have to because of your limited word count. What does this sentence do in my essay? Do I need this sentence? These are questions you should be asking before and as you write to figure out what is useful to the point you’re trying to convey. Just as we are learning to be strategic about reading, we’re also being aware that writing represents a series of choices that we intentionally make. My grading will focus on how well you read, engage, and synthesize Toni Morrison’s argument from “The Site of Memory”, not how well you are able to describe each sentence to me. Focus on what the essay and her writing does; show me how her argument works, don’t tell me. Telling Me: Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is about the lives of a family with histories of slavery in Kentucky that escaped to Ohio during the 1860s. She talks a lot about how the violence is bad and affected a lot of the lives of people in the South. There were some other voices in the story that didn’t agree with this idea though. I like how she talks about memory in the novel because it makes me think more about what we don’t know in history. Showing Me: Following Toni Morrison’s writing, we might think of Beloved as a different story and memory about slavery through the haunting of Sethe by her own body and family. Scars allow us to access a bodily kind of remembrance, a memory of when skin apprehends and imprints a violent encounter with the world. The scar’s that branch and web across Sethe’s back tell an embodied story about how the legacies of slavery do not end after the plantation but are carried across time and space.

Essay Sample Content Preview:
Toni Morrison and the History of Black Literature Student’s Name
Tutor’s Name
Course
Date
Critical Analysis Essay
In “The Site of Memory”, Toni Morrison outlines the elements of display of black humanity through the history of Black Literature and the changing social powers. The narrative begins by offering explanations on some of the notable autobiographies written by black slaves. The author begins by describing the style and circumstances of the narratives of these slaves. Morrison notes that the black authors wrote their stories for two reasons, which are to capture the historical personal life and account of racism, and to move or persuade the non-black readers to sympathize with the humanity of the enslaved black people. However, any issue of concern for Morrison was the constant veil drawn upon these stories to make them palatable with less gory details of the emancipation of the slaves (Morrison 89). In this regards, Toni Morrison seeks to fill the gap about the personal life and experiences of the slaves that the black authors did not include in their autobiographies. To achieve this, Morrison states that her work will include elements of fiction such as magic and awe derived from image to fill the gaps.
In developing her argument regarding the autobiographies of black writers, Morrison begins the narrative by providing short description of some of the most notable publications of blacks during the period of slavery. In highlighting these autobiographies or publications, Morrison is able to convince the reader that her work will take into consideration the facts that are presented from the personal stories of these slaves (Morrison 93). It is essential to note that the goal of Morrison was to reinvent the truth. However, she notes that she cannot reinvent the truth without having an image or information about the facts of the issue. As such, the provision of details and description of some of the publication by black authors addressing the issue of slavery provides a foundation upon which the author can derive creative imagination to reinvent her version of the truth regarding the emancipation of slaves during the period of slavery.
As earlier described the primary task of Toni Morrison is to fill the gap about the truth of the personal lives of slaves. In this endeavor, the author highlights the missing gaps in the publications that were available from other authors, especially those that presented their autobiographies and stories during the era of slavery. For instance, Morrison notes that most of the earlier writers tended to veil most of the atrocities that they suffered during slaves as a way of making their narratives palatable to people who were in positions to alleviate it (Morrison 89). As such, she notes that they ended up being silent about many things and they forgot others. Following this explanation, Morrison expects the reader to understand that her narrative will be different from those of the earlier authors because it will present the truth that these individuals forgot in their endeavor to meet the critical reception of their predominantly white audience. In t...
Updated on
Get the Whole Paper!
Not exactly what you need?
Do you need a custom essay? Order right now:

You Might Also Like Other Topics Related to language essays:

HIRE A WRITER FROM $11.95 / PAGE
ORDER WITH 15% DISCOUNT!