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Topic: contextual literary argument over Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Length: four to five pages – works cited must be page five, at the very least
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Source materials: the novel is your primary text, then two required scholarly sources that will build your contextual lens framework
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Since the novel is long, you will argue a facet the novel you find most interesting
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the novel.
Carve out a “critical approach” or “lens” that interests you the most in Hurston’s novel. Here are the
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anthology’s listed approaches: formalist strategy, biographical strategy, psychological strategy, historical strategy, Marxist strategy, New Historicist Criticism, cultural, gender strategy, mythological strategy, reader- response, and Deconstructionist.
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If none of these speak to you, then carve out your own lens or area of interest. You may discuss this with me.
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Circle around this facet of the novel and argue from this standpoint or lens. Use the novel directly and specifically—quote and cite—to earn your cultural approach. Each body paragraph should pull from the novel
directly one-to-two times, at least.
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figurative language, etc. This was homework reading in Unit I.
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Give your essay a creative title.
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Supply a strong thesis claim in the introductory paragraph.
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Clearly organized body paragraphs around analytical topic sentences will be key. Utilize the formal outline
template to ensure that you have a strong scaffolding for your research essay.
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To “use” a secondary source means you go to that source directly via quotes, paraphrase/summary at least twice
in your essay