SOW Literary Response Essay

SOW Literary Response Essay

HA English 9

OReilly

 

You will write a 5-6 paragraph essay responding to the following prompt:

How does Yukio Mishima, author of The Sound of Waves, use literary devices to support the themes of the text?

 

Remember that you must state your theme as an insight on life, a rule for living, or an eternal truth about human existence; therefore, a theme is never one word. A theme, since it is a concept, must be a sentence. You may use one of the following themes or ferret out your own insights embedded in the text:

 

 

The natural state of human beings is to be essentially good; therefore, the noblest characters in the text The Sound of Waves have the closest ties to nature.

 

When people are essentially good and brave, they learn from their mistakes and make amends to those they have harmed.

 

Noble characters lack ego and are not concerned with their appearance, possessions, or the opinions of others; consequently, such noble souls selflessly serve others to the benefit of society.

 

Karma is at work in people’s lives, so selfless, courageous deeds are rewarded in the end, and selfishness and cowardice are punished with regret and personal pain.

 

 

You will need to modify these themes to turn them into thesis statements:

 

In the text, Sound of Waves by Yokio Mishima, karma is at work in people’s lives, so selfless, courageous deeds are rewarded in the end, and selfishness and cowardice are punished with regret and personal pain: therefore, Shinji and Hatsua, are rewarded for their selfless acts, while Chiyoko and Yasuo suffer for theirs.

 

 Your paper will show how literary devices such as imagery, characters, metaphors, simile, personification support the themes. You may also discuss how motifs, repeating elements in the texts, reinforce and support the themes. Some motifs in Sound of Waves are nature, (waves, animals, insects, seaweed etc.) spirituality, selflessness, ego, karma, courage/cowardice, honour, self awareness, pessimism, optimism, simplicity, male/female roles, gossip, city life, thought, beauty, dirtiness, education.

 

The first phase of your paper will be to write your opening paragraph. Your opening paragraph will need background, a brief statement introducing the author and the text. Please colour code your paragraph (background, blue; thesis/plan, green). Limit your background to three sentences or less. In the background you may discuss:

            • The year the text was published

            • a very brief summary of the story

            • A brief statement about the tone or theme you will discuss.

 

Your opening paragraph must also present your plan as either part of your thesis or as a separate sentence.

 

 

 

 

Here is an opening paragraph for a thematic essay about To Kill a Mockingbird:

 

To Kill a Mockingbird, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960, was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American fiction. The novel is loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her southern hometown in 1936 when she was 10 years old. The text was primarily successful due to its treatment of racial and class inequality in the south. The structure of the text, characters, metaphor, and simile reveal that racism is a form of ignorance and superstition.

 

In addition to writing your opening paragraph, make a brief outline of your key ideas including the literary devices that you will discuss. Here is an outline from the To Kill a Mockingbird essay:

 

I Structure

A.   Boo Radley is compared to Tom Robinson

B.    The rabid dog is compared to Bob Ewing

II. Characters

A.   Atticus is a model of tolerance

B.    Maudie is a model of a liberated female

C.    Bob Ewing is paragon of evil

II. metaphor and simile

A.   Sin to kill a mockingbird

B.    Squashing a bug is like killing Tom Robinson

 

 

Turn in your paper with both rubrics and your first draft.

10 points_________ Paper is properly formatted, has a clever title, and is 5-6 paragraphs. Paper is written in LP. There is an absence of mechanical and grammatical errors: CIE, CFB, RO, CS, SC, VPR. ANV

5 points _________ Your opening paragraph introduces the text and author and contains a brief background, a thesis statement, and a plan

30 points _________ Each body paragraph has a clear topic sentence. There are enough specific examples, explanations, and excerpts to support your topic sentence. Each body paragraph must have a properly formatted short quotation from the text gracefully inserted into the writing. No PQ please.

5 points _________  Your conclusion restates the key ideas of your paper without parroting your thesis statement. Rephrase your ideas bringing a freshness and a new twist.

20 points _________  You have the following types of sentences properly punctuated:

            You have two complex sentences: bold

                                    You have two compound sentences with a fan boy: bold underline

                                    You have two sentences with CNEs: bold italics

                                    You have two compound sentences with conjunctive adverbs: highlight

 

Timeline:

The opening paragraph and three body paragraph topic sentences are due _______________
The first draft, which must be typed and formatted is due _______________

The final draft is due ________________

Peer edit Sound of Waves
HA English 9
OReilly
Author’s name__________________
Peer editors__________________    __________________

Rank on a scale of 1-5.
Peer edit 1    peer edit 2
_________    _________  Paper is properly formatted and has a clever title
_________    _________  Your opening paragraph introduces the text and author
_________    _________  Each body paragraph must have a properly formatted short quotation from the text gracefully inserted into the writing. No PQ please. See example below.
Proper formatting for quotes: Quotes are “gracefully integrated,” and the commas and periods are inside the quote marks, except when there are parenthesis, like these (22).
_________     _________ You have the following types of sentences properly punctuated:
            You have two complex sentences: bold
            You have two compound sentences with a fan boy: bold underline
            You have two sentences with appositives: bold italics
            You have two compound sentences with conjunctive adverbs: highlight
   
Comments _________________________________________________________________________________