Literary+Criticism

Your Task: Directions to Begin: Part One: (50 points) You are not limited to the above list, nor must are you expected to answer all of the above. However, your responses to the passages should clearly explain WHY these passages mean something to you, and WHY these passages caught your attention. Part Two: (10 PW/O, 50 RD, 100 FD) Extra Credit: (up to 25 points) Final Product Details: a.k.a. The Important Stuff
 * The Quotes Project: A Critical Reading of Fiction **
 * Read a historic fiction novel
 * Collect a minimum of at least ten annotated quotes/passages from the novel
 * Write a critical literary analysis essay about the novel that you read and your reaction to both it and the annotated passages that you assembled.
 * Use post-its to note/mark passages as you read
 * Every time you encounter a particularly important, provocative, dramatic, surprising, or even disturbing passage, mark it with a post-it note
 * After you complete the novel, look at all those passages and decide which to toss out and which to keep
 * When you finish reading your book, you will select at least ten (10) passages from throughout the novel
 * Copy the passages down WORD FOR WORD (including page numbers)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">After each passage, write about each passage in the following ways:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">In a well-written paragraph, explain how the passage "fits" into the novel (Does the passage add to the character development, the plot line, the details of setting, and so forth?) Discuss the importance of the passage to the book’s message or meaning or theme.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">In a second well-written paragraph, react to the passage as a reader. Make me understand WHY you have selected this passage. To generate responses, you can consider the following as suggested prompts or questions:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Why does the passage impress, intrigue, horrify, or puzzle you?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Do you find the author’s use of language appealing or powerful? Does the passage jump off the page as a great descriptive passage?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does it prompt a strong response from you as you read it? Does it present itself as so well crafted that you just love the sound of it?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Is the language beautiful, descriptive, and graphic?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Is it particularly meaningful?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Is it a high point in the book?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Do you find yourself in agreement/disagreement with the ideas expressed?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does the passage remind you of a situation you have lived as well?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does the passage make you laugh aloud, make you melancholy, or make you something else?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does the author or the character raise intriguing questions or issues?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Does the passage challenge or expand your thinking?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Select one of the ten passages you’ve chosen as "The Quote of the Book" - that one quote that captures the essence –the true meaning– of the novel for you, the reader.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">In a well-written, critical literary analysis essay, explain exactly HOW this passage is the one perfect quote from the book [Think of this as the one passage that you would absolutely want to save should your book ever be lost or destroyed.]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Layout the paper in proper APA format.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">No page requirements – but be sure to be thorough. Brevity is different from being concise.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Include information about the thoughts, feelings, observations, and new insights you experienced while reading your novel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Choose one of the following types of critical theory from which to base your essay: For a General explanation, click here.
 * Psychoanalytic Criticism
 * Marxist Criticism
 * Feminist Criticism
 * New Criticism
 * [|Structuralist Criticism]
 * Deconstructive Criticism
 * New Historical Criticism
 * Cultural Criticism
 * LGBT Criticism
 * Postcolonial Criticism
 * African-American Criticism
 * Social Reader-Response Criticism
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Enclose your project in book cover (mimicking the cover on a hard cover novel), complete with appropriate picture, novel title, author, short plot synopsis (EXCLUDING THE ENDING!), and small author biography as you would see on a new, hard cover novel.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">No points will be awarded if all you do is copy the book’s already designed cover.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Extra Credit points will be given out on a 0-5 basis for each category.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> Final assignment MUST be typed
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> Passages/quotes must be at least two (2) sentences long and no more than eight (8) sentences long.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Many of your passages should – and will be – longer than two sentences.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Passages/quotes must be from throughout the entire novel
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> All passages must be cited in proper APA format.

Adapted from a project created by Anne Arvidson, Exeter-West Greenwich High School, West Greenwich, RI and presented at Atlanta NCTE Convention, 2002