Explícate a short story in your own words.
Description
Must be a minimum of 500 words long (though you are welcome to write more)
Must be typed and in MLA format, which includes: double spaced, Times New Roman size 12 font, a correct MLA header, and correct MLA in-text citations.
Must be proofread and clean. This is a college class, so you should write a paper that looks like it was written by a college student.
Can be either one paragraph or two to three paragraphs. Either way, you are required to have both a thesis statement that can act as an introduction or introductory topic sentence, as well as a concluding sentence or paragraph.
Absolutely NO RESEARCH should be conducted for this essay. The thoughts and analysis should be entirely your own. However, if you ignore my rule and you do happen to look up information or opinions on the story, then you are required to cite your sources correctly and thoroughly in MLA format, because otherwise you will fail the assignment for plagiarism.
Answer the following prompt:
Select ONE of the short stories that we have read (“Do Not Go Gentle,” “Woman Hollering Creek,” “Speech Sounds,” or “Exhalation”). Select a passage (a quote) from the story and explicate it. To explicate a passage means to explain what it means and why it is important for understanding the meaning of the story. The object is not only to explain what the quote means in your own words, but to demonstrate why this could be the most important quote in the story. Why does this quote have so much meaning and importance in the story as a whole?
Note: Pick a quote that is NO LONGER than THREE sentences long. The purpose of this paper is NOT to fill it with a large quote, but to find a brief passage to analyze. The focus should be on the analysis.
Follow these steps in your explication:
1. In your first sentence/paragraph, include the full title of the story and the author’s full name (after this, refer to the author by his or her last name only). Write a thesis/topic sentence that explains what you think is the larger idea or theme of the story.
2. Introduce the quote (make sure to cite and quote it thoroughly), and then explain in your own words what the story is saying.
3. Pull back and put the quote in the larger context of the story. Who is saying it? Why? What does it show us about the character, theme, setting, meaning of the story, etc? So what?
4. Is there any other place in the story where we can see the meaning of the quote really shining through? Why is this a quote that could give us access to understanding the story as a whole? Explain.
