Some Things to Remember

Hi Everyone!

It's important to understand this assignment is not a Research Essay. In other words, you are not required to do any research for it. I strongly discourage taking stuff from the web. I say this not because of plagiarism -- I am sure you are smart enough to know that EVERY SINGLE IDEA, SENTENCE, PHRASE or THOUGHT, or even HINT OF A SUGGESTION picked from somewhere MUST be CREDITED.  So and So in Such and Such work talks about .....You will then of course be required to give a bibliography at the end.

But this is not a research essay. 

I do not care what anyone else thinks. I only care about what YOU think. What do YOU observe in a work? What are YOUR thoughts/interpretations/sense? Feel free to use a thesaurus, a dictionary -- you can use those things. You could study an essay to learn a thing or two about the writing style. How to write a good sentence? But don't bother getting thoughts from elsewhere. 

That's important to understand. You are trying to analyze the text, and very often -- as a first step, analysis simply means being able to make a claim, pass a judgment, say something about a text, and then to give evidence for it. Sometimes, to creative kids, this can seem like a very obvious process. 'Duh, doesn't everyone know Pedro is enraged by the conditions in which he sees the migrant workers'. (Just a random example). Well, don't assume.  Say this instead. Just making this up: "Throughout the text we see Pedro made highly uncomfortable by the injustice in society. Pedro does not lie to his sister when she asks if he had stolen the money. He does not refrain from putting his wealth at stake. Most importantly, he is ready to relinquish his entitlement to the throne in order to protect his kingdom. He emerges in the story as a true saviour.  This self-sacrificing nature of Pedrol is supported by the serious tone in which the author narrates his experience in the kingdom. References to his nature are replete with words like "honest", "audacious", "truth to power", "rattled by the severity of danger lurking around helpless" etc etc etc.

You get the drift? This is one very small example.

- More soon