Research Essay Assignment You will compose a 6-page essay based upon a close reading of After the Dark and Thirteen Reasons Why (The book) based upon the topic you choose from the list below. You will then research and incorporate into your essay 6 academic sources: 2 sources about After the Dark, 2 sources about Thirteen Reasons Why, and 2 sources about the topic you have chosen. This essay will follow MLA formatting guidelines including using 12pt Times New Roman Font, double spaced, having proper 1 inch margins, a proper header, a proper heading, using proper citations, and containing a proper works cited page. In addition, you will have to center your essay around a main idea or point. This idea or point is called a thesis. Your thesis is like a hypothesis, only, instead of asking a question you are making a declarative statement. Your thesis should be one or two sentences that answer the questions above in a clear and concise manner. Your thesis should also include what you think are the purposes or effects of the literary/ rhetorical devices used within the work. Literary/rhetorical devices are the artistic uses of language that a writer may add for a particular effect such as diction, tone, imagery, rhetorical questions, repetition, metaphor, rhyme, alliteration, rhythm or meter (a more detailed list of literary devices can be found in the poetry and fiction reading and writing handouts posted on D2L as well as online here: HYPERLINK “https://www.roanestate.edu/owl/ElementsLit.html” https://www.roanestate.edu/owl/ElementsLit.html . In the essay, you should detail how the meaning of the works is conveyed to the reader by the literary/rhetorical devices and describe how the literary/rhetorical devices add or subtract to the possible meaning of the work. You must use quotes from the texts to explain your points. A good tip is to give a quote, explain it in your own words, explain what literary devices it contains and why they are important or why that particular quote is important, and explain how the quote supports your thesis. You should use at least 1-2 quotes per paragraph. All of this info can be found in the syllabus and the formatting guide here: HYPERLINK “https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/” https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ . The analysis of your essay should answer this prompt: Some of you may have heard the phrase the human condition or the human experience. The human condition is a complex one because humans themselves are complex. Humans can feel and be driven by a wide range of emotions and instincts like love, hate, joy, and sorrow. At the same time humans can think rationally and logically or act impulsively upon these emotions. They can feel moments of transcendence or feel utterly forsaken. Humans can perceive beauty and mold themselves or their environment to attempt to mimic that beauty. Humans can perceive ugliness and can demonize and attempt to destroy each other based on such perceptions. Humans can build wonderful structures and live harmoniously within nature or consume everything within their sight, leaving the land in utter ruin and desolation. How do After the Dark and Thirteen Reasons Why treat these topics? Narrow down and discuss only one theme or topic such as war, heroism, history, nature, suicide, bullying, psychological motivations, treatment of children, the treatment of women, gender roles, sex, sexuality, academics, economics, race, ethnicity, religion and/or spirituality, art/literature and culture (music, poetry, movies, etc), the relationship between art/literature and life, etc. Again, you are merely interpreting the texts so you must ground your ideas in the texts by having a carefully crafted thesis and by using quotes and proper citations in order to back up your views of how the texts present the topic you have chosen.
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