This literary essay will have a minimum of five paragraphs, will be in MLA format, and will require quotations from at least three secondary sources (as well as quotations from the novel, of course).
The secondary sources should be scholarly, and not just from Sparknotes and the like. A good place to find secondary sources is Google Scholar, or JSTOR (login: JohnTaylorCA, pw: researcher).
The introductory paragraph will have a thesis statement.
Each body paragraph will have at least two quotations from your primary source (i.e., the novel), as well as at least one quotation from a secondary source.
Your concluding paragraph should be at least three sentences long.
The essay should be double spaced and in 12 pt, Times New Roman or Courier font.
Here is a link to the scoring rubric.
Here are some resources for writing an essay. Please ensure that you look at the "Editing your Paper" Powerpoint within these resources.
If you are unsure of how to write a literary essay, please visit the following website.
Here is a brief order of operations for writing an essay:
Order of operations for writing a literary essay:
- Decide on a topic
- Gather quotes from the novel about your topic
- Gather quotes from secondary sources about your topic
- Organize quotes into groups/paragraphs
- Introduce quotes (eg: “At one point in the novel, our narrator tells us that, “
- Explain quotes (eg: “This shows us….” “Here, we see that …)
- Insert quote from secondary source (eg: “As the experts at Sparknotes tell us…)
- Write your intro (with thesis statement) and conclusion.
- Create title (eg: An Examination of Bernard in the novel, Brave New World )
