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Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature
Second EditionJohn Schilb; John Clifford
©2017Why argue about literature?
You may think: Don’t we argue about controversial issues like health care and the economy? Isn’t literature something to read and appreciate? It’s not an either/or situation.
Everyday events can surely rouse you to argument, but studying literature can also summon your powers of persuasion. Making the case about what literary works mean, how they came to be, and how they matter (or don’t, or should) requires that you read carefully, analyze texts and evaluate sources, and create well-supported arguments. These are the same skills you will be expected to demonstrate in most college courses. A Brief Guide to Arguing about Literature will help you learn these skills. It will change how you read, think, and write about literature—and about everything else worth arguing about.
Table of Contents
Contents by Genre
1. What is Argument?
Paul Goldberger, Disconnected Urbanism
New Understanding Rhetoric
The Elements of Argument
Sample Argument for Analysis
David W. Barno, A New Moral Compact
Writing a Response to an Argument
New Strategies for Analyzing an Argument So You Can Write a Response to It
An Argument for Analysis
New Regina Rini, Should We Rename Institutions that Honor Dead Racists?
Strategies for Developing an Effective Style of Argument
Structuring Your Argument; Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
Student Response to an Argument
Justin Korzack, How to Slow Down the Rush to War
Arguments for Analysis
New Lee Siegel, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans
New Sophia McDougall, All Princesses Know Kung Fu
What Is Literature?
Why Study Literature in a College Writing Course?
Two Stories for Analysis
Daniel Orozco, Orientation (story)
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl (story)
Strategies for Making Arguments about Literature
Sample Student Argument about Literature
Ann Schumwalt, The Mother’s Mixed Messages in “Girl”
Looking at Literature as Argument
John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent (poem)
Robert Frost, Mending Wall (poem)
Literature and Current Issues
New Rivka Galchen, Usl at the Stadium (story)
New Jon Ronson, from “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life (argument)
New Jennifer Jacquet, from Is Shame Necessary? (argument)
4.. The Reading Process
Strategies for Close Reading
A Poem for Analysis
Sharon Olds, “Summer Solstice, New York City” (poem)
Applying the Strategies
Reading Closely by Annotating
X. J. Kennedy, Death of a Window Washer (poem)
New Further Strategies for Close Reading
New Identify Characters’ Emotions to Get Ideas
New Edward Hirsch, Execution (poem)
Use Topics of Literary Studies to Get Ideas
Lynda Hull, Night Waitress (poem)
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (poem)
New Allison Alsup, Old Houses (story)
5. The Writing Process
William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper (poem)
Strategies for Exploring
Strategies for Planning
Strategies for Composing
First Draft of a Student Paper
Abby Hazelton, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper”
Strategies for Revising
A Checklist for Revising
Revised Draft of a Student Paper
Abby Hazelton, The Passage of Time in “The Solitary Reaper”
Strategies for Writing a Comparative Paper
Don Paterson, Two Trees (poem)
Luisa A. Igloria, Regarding History (poem)
List Similarities and Differences
Consider “Weighting” Your Comparison
A Student Comparative Paper
Jeremy Cooper,” Don Paterson’s Criticism of Nature’s Owners”
Writing about Stories
Eudora Welty, A Visit of Charity
The Elements of Short Fiction
Plot and Structure/Point of View / Characters /Setting /Imagery/Language/Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Tanya Vincent, The Real Meaning of Charity in “A Visit of Charity”
Writing about Poems
Mary Oliver, Singapore
Yusef Komunyakaa, Blackberries
Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill
The Elements of Poetry
Speaker and Tone / Diction and Syntax / Figures of Speech / Sound/ Rhythm and Meter /Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Michaela Fiorucci, “Negotiating Boundaries”
Comparing Poems and Pictures
Analyzing Visual Art/ Writing an Essay that Compares Literature and Art/ A Sample Paper Comparing a Poem and a Picture
Karl Magnusson, Lack of Motion and Speech in Rolando Perez’s “Office at Night”
Edward Hopper, “Office at Night”
Rolando Perez, “Office at Night
Writing about Plays
August Strindberg, The Stronger
The Elements of Drama
Plot and Structure/ Characters/ Stage Directions and Setting /Imagery /Language/ Theme
Final Draft of a Student Paper
Trish Carlisle, “Which Is the Stronger Actress in August Strindberg’s Play?”
7. Writing Researched Arguments
New Begin Your Research by Giving It Direction
Search for Sources in the Library and Online
Evaluate the Sources
New Record Your Sources’ Key Details
Strategies for Integrating Sources
New Avoid Plagiarism
Strategies for Documenting Sources (MLA Format)
MLA In-Text Citation
MLA Works Cited
Three Annotated Student Researched Arguments
An Argument that Uses a Literary Work to Examine Social Issues
Sarah Michaels, “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a Guide to Social Factors in Postpartum Depression
An Argument that Deals with Existing Interpretations of a Literary Work
Katie Johnson, The Meaning of the Husband’s Fainting in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
An Argument that Places a Literary Work in Historical and Cultural Context
Brittany Thomas, The Relative Absence of the Human Touch in “The Yellow Wall-Paper”
Contexts for Research: Confinement, Mental Illness and “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
Cultural Contexts
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper”
S. Weir Mitchell, From The Evolution of the Rest Treatment
John Harvey Kellogg, From The Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease
8. Writing with Critical Approaches to Literature
Contemporary Schools of Criticism
New Criticism; Feminist Criticism; Psychoanalytic Criticism; Marxist Criticism; Deconstruction; Reader-Response Criticism; Postcolonial Criticism; New Historicism; Queer Theory
Working with the Critical Approaches
James Joyce, Counterparts (story)
Molly Fry, A Refugee at Home (student paper)
New James Joyce, Eveline