TGOW In-Class Essay Topics Posted

Later this week you will be writing the first stage of an essay about the novel. This first step is a 50-minute in-class graded draft that you will do either Thursday (D block) or Friday (C Block). The topics are now posted for you in the Essential Documents section here. As indicated on that document, this essay will be graded twice: once as the in-class piece you create this week, and again (for more points) as a revised piece after Spring Break. For now, you should look over the topics, think about which ones appeal to you, and do some pre-writing. What that looks like for you is one of the learning points here. I suggest you do some sort of loose, non-linear writing. That could be a "vomit draft" where you write whatever comes into your mind. It could be a bubble diagram, where you write down ideas and show visually the relationships between them, whether they are characters, scenes, themes, quotes, or whatever. I would suggest you try a couple of topics and see which one is working better for you. I would suggest that you wait to make a formal outline until you have a better idea of what you are outlining—what your ideas are and what order they are in. The thesis is ultimately very important, but that might be the last thing that gets finalized. You might tweak it several times in the process of the pre-writing. That would be good. I hope this is a satisfying process for you, and one that leads you to a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the novel!