One of the goals for this class is for students create an original close reading based argument paper. A close reading based analytical paper is a formal argument paper in which the argument is derived from a sustained attention to the details to the form and content of a text. Importantly this paper is not a research paper. It is not a comparative paper, and it is not a summary. In this paper you should pay close attention to the literary form of a small part of a particular text, and you should posit a claim about how you think we ought to read the way that small part of the text is working and ultimately how it affects (challenges, deepens, illuminates, etc.) how we should read the whole text.

In this paper you should use one or both of the close reading strategies we discussed in class. Either way the key to this paper (as with all the assignments) is scope.  If you are using the archeological dig method, you should only be digging at a small and focused part of the text. Probably not more than 2 pages, and it could easily be as small as the first 30 seconds of a music video.  If you are using the follow the trail method, you need to be very precise about what it is you are following. You are not following all instances of childhood or regret in Frankenstein. That’s way too big. You can’t even in the amount of space you have follow all references to mountains (there are a fair amount of mountains in the novel). But perhaps you could do a more localized trail following of all the instances of losing footing or potentially falling in the mid-section of where Frankenstein is wondering about the mountains alone when he meets the monster.

Remember in both the case of archeological dig (where you analyze the way multiple devices are working together in a small section) and follow the trail (where you follow one device or one detail across a longer section), you should in prewriting and drafting follow the method, making observations and connections in the text, and then posit an original interpretation—a claim based on how you see these textual elements working.  The paper you turn in though should not wait until the end to posit this claim. You should start with the claim; it will be your thesis. You should give us sense of how you will illustrate this claim for the reader, and then over several body paragraphs with clear topic sentences that introduce each point, you should move through the text, showing the evidence, and explaining how you want your reader to interpret that evidence so that they may understand your central claim.