Prose vs. Open PROSE Question:  Passage provided  Response is based on a Close Reading of Text for Stylistic Devices (detail, image, diction, etc.)  Use specific quotations from the text in discussion. OPEN Question:  No passage  Response is based on an element/situation in a longer work and it’s connection to theme.  Use specific references to text, not quotations, in discussion.

What’s the Same?  You are still answering the question: How does device/technique create meaning?  There is still an answer to a little and BIG question in your thesis.

Breaking Down an Open Prompt: From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character’s villainy and show how it enhances the meaning in the work.  The answer to the little question.  The answer the BIG Question.

Identifying Tasks:  Select a work:  Identify a villain:  Analyze the nature of villainy:  Connect villainy to theme/meaning:  Show how it enhances theme/meaning:

Addressing the Tasks:  Select a work: The Scarlet Letter  Identify a villain: Chillingworth  Analyze the nature of villainy: secretive, deceitful, vengeful  Connect villainy to theme/meaning: hidden guilt destroys; public penance purifies  Show how it enhances theme/meaning: by contrasting Hester; by echoing Dimmesdale

Basic Thesis In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the villain Chillingsworth, who is secretive, deceitful and vengeful, enhances the meaning of the work by contrasting Hester and echoing Dimmesdale in order to show the reader that hidden guilt destroys and public penance purifies.

Refined Thesis In The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne portrays Chillingsworth’s base villainy as both a reflection of Dimmesdale’s evil and as a contrast to Hester’s purity in order to illustrate the corrosive nature of hidden guilt and the purifying power of public penance.

Break it Down… In great literature, no scene of violence exists for its own sake. Choose a work of literary merit that confronts the reader or the audience with a scene or scenes of violence. In a well-organized essay, explain how the scene or scenes contribute to the meaning of the completed work.

Tasks: Select a work: Lord of the Flies Scene(s) of violence: progression of the pig killing Connection of the scenes to the meaning of the work: Humans have an innate capacity for brutality.

Specific References to Text:  Jack’s inability at the beginning to kill the pig because he is afraid of the blood and the killing.  The killing of the mother sow while she’s feeding her young.  The killing of Simon on the beach. (lacked clarity it was a human)  The killing of Piggy at the end. (clearly a human)

How do I prepare to write on Hamlet ?  Consider thematic subjects and possible thematic statements.  Consider the narrative techniques that help create those themes—relationships between characters, setting, conflict, etc.

Essay Preparation for Thursday  Review the prompt.  Consider which characters are options for the answer to the prompt.  Consider how you would organize your essay.  Consider text evidence you’d use to support your thesis.