Read Instructions

Choose ONE of these stories and use the guidelines below.

Sister Carrie
, “Open Boat
,” “Blue Hotel,
or “To Build a Fire”
Choose a pivotal moment (a sentence, a passage, a scene) that you believe exposes a dominant theme or tendency in the text. This theme/tendency may reflect content or form, and it should be related to the unit. That is, whatever theme/tendency you choose it should be relevant to either Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, or Postmodernism.

Identify the author, the text, and the moment about which you will write. Provide a close reading of this moment, making an argument about how it exposes the theme/tendency that you are identifying.

Relate that close reading to the text as a whole, and note whether you believe that this close reading can help to contribute to an understanding of the unit’s theme, explaining how or why you think this is the case.

5.    This is a critical response to the texts, not an opinion piece, biographical background of the author, a book review or plot summary. You only have 2-3 pages in which to do this. Jump right into your argument.