As I mentioned in the course syllabus, your four-page analytical paperwill center around acommon motif, theme, or critical

As I mentioned in the course syllabus, your four-page analytical paperwill center around acommon motif, theme, or critical term found in at least two required classtexts.  One of those texts must be a workweve read (or viewed) since the midterm. You decide which motif, theme, or critical term you wish to writeon.  Suggestions include the struggle forfreedom, racial justice, or self-determination; the richness and depth of Blackidentity; defiance; engaging African American history or memory; musical links,including the blues, jazz, spirituals, and hip hop; the use of language,vernacular, dialect, or otherwise; links to African roots; signifin and other literarytropes; protest; orality/the oral tradition; passing and the color complex; theuse of color; violence in all its many forms; mental abuse; and civil rights  If you need help with your writing, I stronglysuggest that you visit the Writing Center, located in the ASU library.  Type your papers, double-spaced.  Make sure to include a creative title thathooks your readers.

Quote fromeach respective text at least twice to support your argument, which you willestablish in a thesis sentence in the first paragraph.  Follow MLA guidelines when documenting yourwork.  (We will review MLA documentationin class.)   Sometimes its easier towrite an eight-page paper as opposed to a four-page essay.  Narrow your focus, but make sure not tospread yourself too thin.

Accordingto Jeffrey Geiger and R. L. Rutsky in A Norton Reader, an analyticalpaper implies breaking a complex phenomenon down to its elements, to see HOWthey work, and WHY.  So, in this paper,look beyond the obvious, or denotative level of the book, to find formalelements, motifs, structures, terms, or themes that are its substance.  Your paper should determine HOW and WHY theseideas function, and WHAT their effects are.

Becauseyou will be writing on two books, you will use some form of comparison andcontrast.  You should give more or lessequal weight to each book under consideration. Even when contrasting books, there must be enough parallels between themto make the exercise meaningful.  Themost basic rule of comparison is to establish and maintain parallels betweenthe books being examined.  You can usewhole by whole comparison/contrast, where you discuss aspects of one bookfirst, then move to the next book.  Eachbook, then, is treated in a separate section. This approach, however, can make it more difficult to maintain parallelsand focus on specific points of comparison. Instead, organizing the comparison in terms of key points, or a point-by-pointcomparison, often provides a sharper focus on the similarities and differencesunder consideration.  You determine whichmethod works best for you.

Follow theexamples below when quoting material from a text: 

1.    Ex:  Morrison writes, Along with the idea ofromantic love, she was introduced to anotherphysical beauty.  Probably the most destructive ideas in thehistory of human thought (The Bluest Eye 122). 

2.    Ex.  Morrison writes in The Bluest Eye,Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to anotherphysicalbeauty.  Probably the most destructiveideas in the history of human thought (122). 

3.     Ex. When you quote four or more lines, setyour margins differently:  Come in 15spaces from defaulted 1 left margin if your quote does not include a paragraphindention, 10 if it does.  Keep rightmargin unjustified.  Also, your lastsentence and parenthetical reference would look something like this (note wherethe period is placedbefore the left parenthesis):

_______________________________________________
____________________________________________
_________________________________________________

________________________.  (122)

Note too that there are noquotation marks when youre setting your text off from the defaulted leftmargin.  The fact that youre settingthese four lines off from the 1 margin indicates quote, so you dont need toinclude quotation marks.