British Literature Survey
Path 2: Essay Prompts & Guidelines

Essay responses to Path II prompts should . . .

• deliver a structured argument: these will not resemble personal journal entries, blog-style writing, or stream-of-consciousness reflections. Essays should be tightly organized--main points should be logically ordered, and the whole should be framed by a creative, short introduction and some kind of conclusion (do not wrap up by summarizing your main points).
• evince creativity:these exercises are all about effective, persuasive argumentation, and not at all about giving me some "correct" answer you think I want to hear.
• rest on a narrowly argued thesis: your essays should move in a very specific direction. Do not attempt to touch on every possible idea of piece of supporting evidence.
• be adequately supported with evidence: use your own ideas, textual references (with MLA-style page citations), and relevant material from secondary sources. As concerns these essays, there is no such thing as an incorrect argument--only an insufficiently supported one.
• demonstrate familiarity with not only your primary text, but also:
  • path 2 essays written by those in your group and the group with which you've been paired
  • path 2 topics researched by your group and the group with which you've been paired
  • path 1 discussions and topics pertinent to your argument
• be 300-500 words in length, show signs of careful revision, and appear on Blackboard by Sunday midnight. You can look over some relatively strong sample responses here.
  

Paul Marchbanks
marchban@email.unc.edu