Goal: Using the Week 6 Evidence Outline, write an analytical essay on The Years of My Birth by Louise Erdrich.
Length: about 600-700 words
Before submitting this essay, be sure to watch the video on PROOFREADING. Proof your essay so it is well-organized; each paragraph has a strong topic sentence; grammar and punctuation is correct; the title of the story is in quotation marks; after first referring to the author by first and last name, subsequent references use the author’s LAST name (so Erdrich, not “Louise.”) What you submit is a final version, not a draft.
Format: Please type your name on the paper. Please DOUBLE-SPACE.
Submit the assignment using the link below. Email or other attachments are not accepted.
How to approach this exercise: Reread the story; think about it, annotate it. Review the literary terms we have been learning. Write a statement about the story that you can explore by examining a particular literary focus (for example: characterization; setting; point of view; symbols, or any other category you choose to examine). This will be your thesis. Write a strong introductory paragraph (review the Week 5 assignment). Then develop the essay with examples from the story that illustrate your thesis. The concluding paragraph should review how your thesis has suggested one way a reader can understand this story. Other than a 1 or 2-sentence summary, your essay should not retell the plot.
This is NOT a research assignment. You should not use any outside (secondary) sources.
Trust yourself and your ideas. Other than to read the story, stay away from the Internet.
NOTE: For this assignment, you do not have to include a Work Cited page.
If any part of your paper is not your own work and you have not given credit to the author, you will give yourself zero points with NO REWRITE ALLOWED. See the syllabus for other plagiarism penalties.
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