English 508W Speaking Your Truth Dr. Edith Frampton
Final Essay Guidelines: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
Scholar Terry Eagleton urges us to be “radical critics,” who speak their own personal truth and discuss how to make the world a better place when they write about literature. What is your truth? What would you like to change about your life, the lives of people you care about, or the world? To what degree does the change that you seek play out (or not play out) in Zadie Smith’s 2000 novel, White Teeth?
Once you’ve thought through what you’d like say via Smith’s novel, formulate this into your “sales pitch” (or argument). If you wish, you may also consider to what degree your topic is evident even in the work of an earlier British author who influenced Smith: Charles Dickens in his 1861 novel Great Expectations; however, this isn’t required. After formulating your sales pitch, think through which textual evidence you could use to sell your idea best and create a “map” of how your essay will proceed. By Thursday, 8/6, submit a draft of your introductory paragraph for the essay in the designated spot for this on Canvas. This introduction should include a provocative “seduction” (or lead in), a clearly stated “sales pitch” (or argument), and a “map” (or indication of how the essay will proceed). This introduction is worth 40 out of the 240 points for the essay.
Only after having composed your introductory paragraph, find one full-length, pertinent, peer-reviewed journal article or chapter in a scholarly book focused on the novel, White Teeth, making use of the MLA International Bibliography database in order to locate this. This secondary source doesn’t need to make the same argument that you will be making in your own essay. Please plan to submit a link to it in the designated spot on Canvas also by Thursday, 8/6 for preliminary approval before you spend time reading it.
In writing your essay, you should feel free to relate your analysis of White Teeth (and, if you choose, its predecessor, Great Expectations) to aspects of your own life and the world around you, and you are welcome to use the first or the third person. Weave in discussion of the scholarly piece you found and read, even if only to show how it goes in a very different direction from your own analysis. If you wish to reference the words or ideas of someone else or of AI of any kind, you must fully and accurately acknowledge your source. Guidelines for composition and citing a reference will continue to be covered in class. There are severe penalties for plagiarism, as mandated by the university. Intentional plagiarism will result in an F for the course; plagiarism which appears to have been unintentional will result in an F on the essay. Your essay may be between eight and ten pages long, including the works cited and title pages.
Once your essay is finished, have it proofread and edited by someone whose opinion you trust, making changes accordingly, and paste in his, her, or their comments and corrections at the end of your final draft. The final draft must be typed and double-spaced and include an original title on a title page, in keeping with the model provided below, and a works cited page with between three and five sources. You may cite books and essays that we have read together through the semester in class, as well as class lectures, discussions, film clips, etc. Follow MLA guidelines for citation very carefully. Your essay is due by Thursday, 8/8 at 11:59 p.m. Submit it as a Word doc, docx, rtf, or pdf file in the designated spot on Canvas. You may not submit anything in Google docs, Pages, or any other format. If you have problems with your submission, please contact me right away via email at eframpto@sdsu.edu. Late essays will be marked down one whole letter grade; no essays will be accepted more than one week late.
There are 200 total points possible for the final essay plus 40 total points for the advance introduction submission. Your grade will be based on evidence of time and thought invested in analysis, writing, and research; a clearly stated “sales pitch,” or thesis argument to the essay; specific supporting details or examples to back up that argument; careful organization; well-structured, interesting sentences and paragraphs; a lack of grammatical, mechanical, and other errors, and a correctly formatted essay and works cited page.
