You must take a compare/contrast approach and relate the following readings to each other :
The Raven
The Imp of the Perverse
The Black Cat
The Tell-Tale Heart
The Cask of Amontillado
Hop-Frog
The Masque of the Red Death
MAKE SURE YOUR ESSAY FLOWS AND YOU INCLUDE DETAIL
Your essay will be at least three pages long, in double-spaced, Times New Roman font. I want you to go into detail and focus as much on quality as quantity, so please dont just count words until you think you have hit the quota. All essays should follow MLA format in terms of page layout, header, no cover page, et cetera, as well as any citations. This goes for the readings themselves, what we call the Primary Source, but doubly so if you make direct reference to any outside article, film, or any other work. You MUST include a citation at the end. All direct textual references to a work WITHIN your essay must include a proper, parenthetical in-text citation. On that note, I would strongly recommend making abundant use of quotes, as they demonstrate that you are truly engaging with and comprehending the works we cover. Three pages without a single citation will make your writing come off as too general in tone.
As for content, every essay must have a strong central thesis or idea, uniting every other aspect that you discuss. I am giving you very free rein to pick your own thesis. The easiest way to start is to consider what you found interesting about a given reading, and then seeing how you might spin that into a full commentary or analysis. If you are bored writing your essay, your audience is likely to be bored reading it. The more specific a thesis, the better it is. Beowulf is a hero is barely a thesis; Beowulfs classical, unironic heroism stands in contrast to the more knowing, post-modern hero popular with present-day audiences is much more fertile grounds for discussion. Dont just tell me a Poe story is funny or intense; go into detail about why, and how one piece might differ from another. What is the author trying to do? Do they succeed? If so, what techniques and methods do they use to attain that kind of effective writing? Find something of merit to tell me about how these works reflect our times or the times in which they were written. The golden rule is: dont just summarize. I already know what happens in the story, but what I dont know is your perspective on it. A bit of plot synopsis is fine, but these essays should be 15% synopsis, 85% analysis, if even that much.
Try not to use first person, An I or a my or a me is not going to spoil a paper, particularly in cases where it helps the flow of a sentence which might otherwise be too busy if contorted into third person. HOWEVER, please avoid what I like to call self-narration. I dont want to see papers starting with I had never read Walt Whitman before, and when I first tried doing so for class, I found him confusing, but gradually I started to get into him. That sort of loose tone is fine for the discussion boards, but for graded papers, were looking for something more academic and polished. Get to the point. Be forthright and direct. Dont qualify and undercut your own ideas. Instead of saying Now, it may just be my opinion, but when I read The Black Cat, it struck me that Poe might be using the story as a metaphor for alcholism, say Poe wrote the Black Cat as a metaphor for alcoholism. The entire paper is already your opinion, so you dont have to be meek when offering your thoughts. This style of writing might take a time or two to get used to, but you truly would not believe how much that simple fix can improve the readability and focus of an essay.
Regarding titles: all short works or component works of larger collection should be given in quotes, i.e., The Raven. All longer works or titles of compilations are given in italics, i.e., Blood Meridian. The same goes if youre discussing an episode title and series title, a song title and an album title, and so forth. Its actually pretty simple once you know that distinction. Of course, all titles, regardless of length, should see the first letter of all non-prepositional words capitalized, i.e. The Colour Out of Space.
Lastly, it goes without saying that all papers should adhere to proper rules of grammar and syntax.
