1. Essay 1 Timeline: Extended Office Hours Begin Week Three
Saturday Week 2: Pre-Writing Grid (50 pts WP)
Monday Week 3: Preliminary Thesis (25 pts WP)
Wed Week 3: Revised Thesis & 1 body paragraph (claim, textual evidence, warrant) (25 pts WP)
Monday Week 4: Complete Rough Draft Due (3 pps. Minimum) (50 pts WP)
Wednesday Week 4: Peer Editing Due (50 pts WP)
Saturday Week 4: Final Draft (3-5 pp.) and Writing Portfolio (100 pts WP) *shoot for 4 complete pp.

2. Essay 1 Task Prompt
Passage Analysis of the Scope and Quality of Agency: You will choose ONE of the below two options.
1) Book 6 lines (Hector, Adromache, son)
2) Book 16 lines (Patroclus and Hector)
Be sure to complete the first Ideas Draft by Saturday, October 10th 11:45 p.m. for your selected passage.
Bring Preliminary Thesis to Monday’s Class for In-Class Work (See Thesis Building Slides at End of this .pptx for tips)

3. Determining the Quality and Scope
As you are formulating your thesis you may want to follow the following general steps…
What factors “cause” or contribute to character action? (deliberation, cultural duty, gender role, emotion, fate, etc.)
What are the “consequences” of character action?
What are the outcomes of action – impact on others, impact on self, etc.
When considering a character “wrestling” with the above, does the above characterize or reveal conflict or crisis or underlying motive for character action?

4. Thesis Building Tips (more than 1-2 sentences)
A complex and provocative thesis for this essay may take the form of a “Yes…but…so what” thesis. Here is a starter formula to get you going…
Although/While “X” reflects (a kind of deliberation prior to action, action determined by), “Y” illustrates how… This crisis/conflict of …reveals…
The final part of the above formula – the “So What” element asserts how the underlying crisis/conflict, etc. depicted in the passage reflects something important or noteworthy about the larger themes or concerns of the text as a whole.

5. 5 thesis reminders
1) In your thesis you are asked to consider what accounts for action in the passage (causes/consequences) as a means of establishing the scope and quality of agency in the passage.
Note: Desire, passion, anger, fear are all internal forces. Issues of instinct about human nature and self-preservation as a kind of impulse are also internal forces and NOT counted as agency.
Note: An individual with agency acts self-consciously (awareness of power to act freely), guided by reason, consideration, reflection (even while under constraints like impulse , instinct, duty or some factor of determination).

6. 5 thesis reminders
2) A more complex argument will follow a kind of Yes…but structure that will help explain to what extent the human action is based on agency and to what extent it is driven by internal impulse, external force (bargain with god, duty to honor code, constraints based on gender, fate, etc. ).
The last thesis component is the “so what” element (next slide)
Note: With a complex argument you may find your thesis longer than one sentence, which is appropriate for this kind of analysis.

7. 5 thesis reminders
3) The last part of the thesis is called the “so what” element.
In the “so what” portion of the thesis explain what your argument reveals about larger themes or concerns of the text (about men’s or women’s roles/values in this society, about the duty of the military, complicated negotiation between agency and “force,” about the interconnected relations between the humans and gods in this society, etc.)

8. 5 thesis reminders
4) Your thesis should focus on the characters and action in the selected passage and not make a generalized claim about humans and gods in the Iliad
You are also not supposed to argue about whether or not the characters in the poem or passage have agency

9. 5 thesis reminders
5) Make sure your argument is clear and takes a specific and arguable position
Read your thesis to someone and ask them what you are arguing (to check for clarity)
Avoid being too vague or general (take a position)
Avoid writing a thesis that is obvious
A thesis with which everyone would generally agree

10. 5 thesis reminders
5) Avoid offering a “Laundry List” of proof items in your thesis. That means that you should try not to make your thesis and prove it all at the same time.
You don’t need to try to prove your argument in your thesis.
You might find that these “laundry list” can be used to formulate claims for body paragraphs.