1. Essay Tips & Expectations
(in preparation of Friday’s
Scarlet Letter in class essay)

2. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
Because I care, I want you to do well on your essay that we’ll do later this week.
Grading essays recently, I’ve noticed problems that are showing up way too often for far too many people.
So I’m going to help. You MUST take notes on these tips/suggestions and you MUST turn in these notes when you turn in your essay on Friday (or you automatically lose one letter grade off your essay).

3. The Basics
Middle school stuff to begin but you might be surprised how often even you wonderful scholars mess this stuff up:
You must use MLA headers. That means and on the first page & on the remaining pages.
Write neatly
You do NOT have to lines
Do NOT write on the of the page

4. Scarlet Letter Essay – Do’s & Don'ts
You may NOT use 2nd person references. That means you cannot use/phrases words such as :
Additionally, you may NOT use 1st person references. That means you cannot use words/phrases such as :

5. Scarlet Letter Essay – Do’s & Don'ts
When referring to the title of the novel, you must it. Do NOT use with the title.
Let’s make sure you do this correctly. Write the title of novel here in the manner that you’ll be referring to it throughout your essay:

6. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
How should you start your first paragraph (and/or what should you NOT do in the first could lines)?
Write a sample start to an essay (i.e. a couple sentences) if the essay question was: What is the theme of Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street?

7. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
In your first paragraph when you refer to the novel the first time, I’d love to see you separate the title and the author (instead of something like “Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea or “The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway”).
Write a sample sentence or two in which separate the title and author:

8. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
In this assignment as well as any regular literary analysis essay, when you move onto a new paragraph, you need to realize that the information does not carry over. That means that when you move to a new paragraph, you’ll need to reintroduce the
, and .

9. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
We struggle setting up quotes in our essays. I’d suggest that you make sure you are explaining the surrounding situation that the passage you are quoting entails BEFORE you give the quote. That means explaining the characters involved in the quote, the circumstances that the passage is taken from, etc…
Practice by opening up Scarlet Letter to a random place and setting up the quote.

10. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
Throughout your essay, you need to be focusing on what the author is doing within his/her story (and what he/she is doing to affect you). To ensure that you’re doing that, you should be using Hawthorne’s name often in your paragraphs
Think of it this way: write about what the author does, how he/she creates meaning (instead of writing about how you feel about it). Make sense?

11. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
Some people focus way too much on plot summary. What does that mean? What’s wrong with doing that in your essay?
You need to balance your essay with argument (your views) and evidence (quotes and specific examples).

12. Scarlet Letter Essay Tips
What is a theme? What is it not (in other words, what do people screw up when thinking they are talking about a theme)?
So let’s practice. Give me an example of a theme from popular movie or TV show. Then give me an example of an incorrect response of a theme from that show/movie.