Article Analysis (The Essay): 3-5 pages. 25%
Percentage breakdown: 10% Rough Draft: 15% Final Draft
Your first major assignment will best find a work of literary journalism published within the past five years. This article cannot be one of the
anicles assigned in this class or from the U program's joumal Kiosk. You will then write a short essay, closely arialyzing a scene of roughly
one page. Questions you might consider include:
o How does the author introduce the scene?
o Does the scene contribute to the building of suspense?
o Does it introduce crucial information in an artful manner? Hose?
o How does this scene contribute to the development of character in the story as a whole'?
o What stylistic techniques does the author use?
o Does the author vary his or her sentence structure? Why?
o What kind of details does the author foreground? Why?
o What elements of craft are at work in this scene and to what purpose or effect do they work?
You must form a thesis about why you think the author has chosen to execute the scene this way. How do the author's choices for the
scene further his or her goals for the piece?
Your goal is to produce a readable and persuasive analytic essay. You should do as much sentence-level close reading and critical
analysis as possible, focused on the author's croft in writing this scene. Remember that you must be able to support your claims with
textual evidence from the article. You may be asked to attach a photocopy of the article to your essay.