Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:
Literature (poetry and prose) has the capacity to express and even change the culture by encouraging readers to think about society through the lens of a story.
We see Faulkner teach us about the South through his story set there,
while Fitzgerald exposes us to Europe
and Steinbeck illuminates life on a farm out West.
Wartime poets explore the ruinous era in their work
while with Ginsberg, we learn about the 19500s/60s zietgeist.
Plath, Lorde, and Sexton expose trials facing women at the dawn of a new era of feminism.
How do writers use their words to create culture and what types of cultures do they create?
Do you find a culture of an American Dream in the works or more of a nightmarish world?
What makes you decide and how do the authors illustrate that dream or nightmare that is the story of American life in the mid-20th century?
Basic guidelines:
• Use a title that both hooks and informs
• Make a claim in your introductory paragraph (your thesis): this should be an opinion of yours and should be debatable.
• Use strong topic sentences that advance your thesis
• Proofread carefully, especially spelling and formatting of titles, authors’ names, characters, etc. One point off for each author or character whose name is incorrectly spelled
• Use in text parenthetical citations like this (Fitzgerald, 996); no Works Cited page is needed.
• Typed to at least 5 full pages; 6 pages maximum.