Slaughterhouse Five Capstone Essay
You’ve done the heavy lifting. You have the dots; now you need to step back and see what you’ve made or how you might connect them.In your reader groups, you’ve discussed(and sometimes debated) Vonnegut’s inimitable style and voice, the book’s surprising narrative frame (hello, aliens), the story’s patterns and variations, and the novel’s themes, motifs, symbols, and so on. Some of you have been delighted by the details, bewildered by Billy Pilgrim, entranced by the Tralfamadorians, and beside yourself because of the big dog barking.
There’s a lot to say about Slaughterhouse Five. Your job is to continue the conversation.
Your task: Write a deeply reflective essay in which you explore, reveal, and uncover some aspect of Slaughterhouse Five.
Directions:
- Decide what you want to discover, explore, and uncover about the text.
- Choose one feature of Slaughterhouse Five that you find genuinely interesting and worthy of exploration. (This is your chance to talk about “blue and ivory” or the “big dog barking.”)
- Write an essay that is, at its core, a mature, sustained conversation about the book, zeroing in on the one feature you’ve decided to explore and what you discover about it.
This assignment will be different in kind and degree.
This essay is NOT:
A traditional critical analysis or timed writing style essay
A book report or summary
A literary research paper
A reader response paper
And…
Good essays will have clarity of thought and of language.
Good essays will have arguments that are well made and well supported.
Good essays will have a voice that is conversational but thoughtful.
Good essays will contain universal, literary vocabulary, but it will be used to support your points, not make them.
Good essays will show evidence of intellectual time and effort.
Good essays will take risks.
Why we’re writing this way:
To use writing as a means of discovery – to take an idea out and walk it around, to see how far it can go and where else it might lead
To write in a way that’s fresh, challenging, and engaging
To encourage maturity and depth of thought by going outside the boundaries and constraintsof the timed writing style
To move scores on AP rubric – bottom-half to the-top half, and bottom-half of the top-half to the top-half of the top-half – through deep thinking and controlled, mature, and precise use of language
STUDENT-GENERATED RUBRIC
Essays scoring a 5 will…Essays scoring a 4 will…
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Essays scoring a 1 will…