Humanities Homework Help

This paper should be 500-750 words in length (a little longer is fine), times new roman, double-spaced, and formatted according to MLA style, including a works cited page. You are free to write about one or more of the assigned texts for the response paper. However, I don’t recommend discussing more than two texts unless they’re fairly short and your discussion is narrowly focused. The texts are going to be texts written by Poe and Whitman only.

Response papers give you an opportunity for interpretation, analysis, critical reading, and argument. There will be marks for errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, but it will be graded primarily on content (originality of thought, level of analysis, and effectiveness of persuasion). These papers are informal, which means you may write in first person and assume that your reader is familiar with the text, but you should focus on one major question/issue and use specific examples from the text to illustrate and support your argument. For example, here are some appropriate topics for a response paper:

–Choose an important passage to analyze through close reading. Investigate the diction, dominant imagery, and meaning of this passage. Why is this a significant passage? How does it influence our understanding of the whole text?

–Compare the text to other works by the same author OR to another author’s treatment of a similar idea. You may wish to focus on dominant symbols, themes, point of view, or diction in making your comparison.

Here are the following texts that are assigned to the response paper:

Emily Dickinson – “I heard a fly buzz when I died” , “Much madness is divinest sense” “Tell all the truth but tell it slant”

Claude McKay – “If We Must Die” , “America”

If you cannot find the texts anywhere online they are in Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter 9th Edition, if you have any trouble accessing these texts or have any questions for me please do not hesitate to ask.