The essay should be supported with specific examples and details from the texts; avoid generalizations or unnecessary plot summary. Your response should demonstrate thorough comprehension of the course materials, and while well-chosen, brief quotes from the primary texts can be appropriate.
You will be graded on content and organization, including grammar and mechanics; if your response does not meet the expectations for structure or length your grade may be lowered. Your essay should be written in the following format and consist of five well-developed paragraphs of several sentences each:
Paragraph 1 (Introduction): Introduce your paper and end with an original and specific thesis statement—your main point about how/why this theme connects your chosen texts.
Paragraph 2 (First text): Identify the first primary text you have chosen (including title and author’s name) and discuss its context, significance, and relationship to the named theme and answer the related questions.
Paragraph 3 (Second text): Identify the second primary text you have chosen (including title and author’s name) and discuss its context, significance, and relationship to the named theme and answer the related questions.
Paragraph 4 (Third text): Identify the third primary text you have chosen (including title and author’s name) and discuss its context, significance, and relationship to the named theme and answer the related questions.
Paragraph 5 (Conclusion): First, discuss the interesting thematic connections that you see among these texts and comment on their significance. Then, enhance your analysis by discussing what this all adds up to—what we can learn from this comparison, and what bearing the texts’ representation of the theme might have on how this theme is evident in American culture, or American cultural texts, today.
Topic #5
• Discuss and compare how we see “the American Dream (or its inverse, the American Nightmare)” portrayed in the specific primary texts included in our course materials by John Smith, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson.
How do they define this idea? What makes it uniquely “American”?
What contextual factors influence their depiction of the American Dream? What elements of the “dream” do these authors/texts share in common, and how/why do other elements differ?
How is their stance/depiction of the American Dream idea significant to our study of American literature? Be specific with your evidence and your insight.
