Your Task:

Write a critical essay in which you discuss two works of literature you have read from the particular perspective of the statement that is provided for you in the Critical Lens. In your essay, provide a valid interpretation of the statement, agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it, and support your opinion using specific references to appropriate literary elements from the two works. You may use scrap paper to plan your response.

Critical Lens:

Guidelines:

Be sure to:

  • Provide a valid interpretation of the critical lens that clearly establishes the criteria for analysis
  • Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it
  • Choose two works you have read that you believe best support your opinion
  • Use criteria suggested by the critical lens to analyze the works you have chosen.
  • Avoid only plot summary. Instead, use specific references to appropriate literary elements (for example: theme, characterization, setting, point of view) to develop your analysis
  • Organize your ideas in a unified and coherent manner
  • Specify the titles and authors of the literature you choose
  • Follow the conventions of standard written English

Your Task:

Write a critical essay in which you discuss two works of literature you have read from the particular perspective of the statement that is provided for you in the Critical Lens. In your essay, provide a valid interpretation of the statement, agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it, and support your opinion using specific references to appropriate literary elements from the two works. You may use scrap paper to plan your response.

Critical Lens:

This will be a quote that has to do with a particular theme that will probably be found in (almost) every story you will ever read!!!

Guidelines:

Be sure to:

  • Provide a valid interpretation of the critical lens that clearly establishes the criteria for analysis: This means: put the lens into your own words
  • Indicate whether you agree or disagree with the statement as you have interpreted it

Use ONLY ONE SENTENCE _ I AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT

  • Choose two works you have read that you believe best support your opinion.
  • Use criteria suggested by the critical lens to analyze the works you have chosen. This means: you are simply showing me how the critical lens relates to each piece of literature – using literary elements – “Through the author’s use of characterization …
  • Avoid plot summary. Instead, use specific references to appropriate literary elements (for example: theme, characterization, setting, point of view) to develop your analysis (You must do this to pass this part of the exam!!!!!!)
  • Organize your ideas in a unified and coherent manner

This means:please use paragraphs !!!

  • Specify the titles and authors of the literature you choose.
  • Follow the conventions of standard written English

This means use proper English – capitalize, punctuate, spell things correctly, etc. Thanks! 

~“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Explain what the quotation means:

Do you agree or disagree with the quotation? Why?

As a group, discuss specific events and details from the literature we have read that support your interpretation of the quotation. You should have a minimum of three specific details/pieces of evidence for each piece of literature.

Literature #1
Title:
Author: / Literature # 2
Title:
Author:

"All literature is protest. You can't name a single literary work that isn't protest."

Explain what the quotation means:

Do you agree or disagree with the quotation? Why?

As a group, discuss specific events and details from the literature we have read that support your interpretation of the quotation. You should have a minimum of three specific details/pieces of evidence for each piece of literature.

Literature #1
Title:
Author: / Literature # 2
Title:
Author:

Instructions

Re-write each critical lens and provide a valid interpretation of at least THREE sentences. Your interpretation should not simply repeat, re-state or re-phrase the Critical Lens. A useful approach is to look for individual ideas, explore each separately, then determine the statement’s overall meaning. You should circle one or several words that you think are IMPERATIVE for you to interpret in order to fully understand the quote.

EXAMPLE:

“In literature, evil often triumphs, but never conquers.”

An anonymous author wrote, "In literature, evil often triumphs, but never conquers." Any good story needs a conflict, and throughout history, the most basic literary conflict has been a struggle between forces of good and evil. Though the forces of evil must prevail at times in order to further the plot and develop the conflict, they can never triumph in the end. Ultimate victory for the forces of good becomes that much more effective when it has had to overcome smaller victories for the opposing, evil forces. Evil may win the battle from time to time, but good will always win the war.

  1. "The best literature is about the old universal truths, such as love, honor, pride, compassion, and sacrifice."
  1. “Literature opens a dark window on the soul, revealing more about what is bad in human nature than what is good.”
  1. “It is not what an author says, but what he or she whispers, that is important.”
  1. “A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience of every average man and woman.”
  1. “All conflict in literature is, in its simplest form, a struggle between good and evil.”
  1. “The bravest of individuals is the one who obey s his or her conscience.
  1. “If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.”
  1. “All literature shows us the power of emotion. It is emotion, not reason, that motivates characters in literature.”

Sample Critical Lens Quotes
~"In literature, evil often triumphs, but never conquers."
~"Good people... are good because they've come to wisdom through failure."
~"The bravest of individuals is the one who obeys his or her conscience."
~"Knowing about the life and times of an author is irrelevant to appreciating the full meaning of a literary work."
~"A work of literature must provide more than factual accuracy or vivid physical reality... it must tell us more than we already know."
~"Good literature appeals to our intelligence and imagination, not merely our curiosity."
~"A writer should aim to reach all levels of society and as many levels of thought as possible, avoiding democratic prejudice as much as intellectual snobbery."
~"If the literature we are reading does not wake us, then why do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea inside us."
~"I am interested in making a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that is the only way to make people see."
~"A work of literature is limited by the dominant attitudes and ideas of the period in which it is written."
~"If literature is nebulous or inexact, this inexactness is the price literature pays for representing whole human beings and for embodying whole human feelings."
~"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ~George Orwell
~“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” ~Philip K. Dick
~“Humankind cannot stand very much reality.” –TS Eliot
~’Reality’ is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes.”
~“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” –Jules deGaultier
~“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~Soren Kierkegaard
~“The purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” ~ Bernard Malamud
~"This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." ~TS Eliot
~“History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.” ~Clarence Darrow
~“This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. But, it is, perhaps the end of the beginning.”~ Winston Churchill
~"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
~"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." – Barbara Tuchman
~“The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
~“The ultimate security is your understanding of reality.” ~H. Stanly Judd
~“The truly educated man is that rare individual who can separate reality from illusion.”
~“The real hero is always a hero by mistake…” ~Umberto Eco
~“…it is the human lot to try and fail...” ~David Mamet
~“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength….” ~Henry Ward Beecher
~“For what does it mean to be a hero? It requires you to be prepared to deal with forces larger than yourself.” ~Norman Mailer
~“To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.” ~Bernadette Devlin
~“All that is literature seeks to communicate power...” ~Thomas De Quincey ~

Name:

Insert your chosen critical lens here

Explain what the quotation means:

Do you agree or disagree with the quotation? Why?

Discuss specific events and details from the literature we have read that support your interpretation of the quotation. You should have a minimum of three specific details/pieces of evidence for each character.

Literature #1
Title:
Author: / Literature # 2
Title:
Author:

Name:

Insert your chosen critical lens here

Explain what the quotation means:

Do you agree or disagree with the quotation? Why?

Discuss specific events and details from the literature we have read that support your interpretation of the quotation. You should have a minimum of three specific details/pieces of evidence for each character.

Literature #1
Title:
Author: / Literature # 2
Title:
Author: