For this in-class writing assignment, you will write a brief critical analysis essay, just as we practiced in class. Choose one of the three questions, and respond, using the excerpts from both the accompanying literary text and the critical text. As practiced in class, your essay can take the following shape: I. Introduction: Answer the prompt question in a way that is specific, arguable, and focused. (Remember: For a bluebook essay, this just needs to be a sentence two sentences tops!) Il. Body Paragraphs): You only need to do one, but if you are feeling ambitious, you can certainly attempt two. (Be mindful of time.). Here you will support your argument with reasons and evidence. You can use the TEXAS paragraph format. Topic Sentence: Make a claim about the literary text that supports your argument. Explain: Explain the critical context or lens that you’ll be applying. eXample (Evidence): Provide examples from the literary text that demonstrate what you’re claiming. Analyze: How or why does this example demonstrate what you’re claiming. Summarize / So what?: Say what applying the critical lens helps us understand about the literary text. Ill. Conclusion: You have two options restate your argument or explain the big picture/broader implications. Like your introduction, this should only be a sentence or two. 3: The Old English poem Beowulf is a monomythic story, the tale of a “hero’s journey” about Beowulf himself. However, in the opening of Beowul, the narator relates stories of past kings to his own community, so how might these stories function as a kind of “monomyth” for the community Joseph Campbell describes in The Power of Myth? listening to the narrator? How might Beowul/help them make sense of their own world in the way Excerpts Beowulf Anonymous, Oral Tradition (Unknown date, between the 6th and 10″h centuries) Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! In the old days. everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound. Privilege is the way-men-prime power. teworld.over. Only stories now, but I’ll sound the Spear-Danes’ song, hoarded for hungry times. Their first father was a foundling: Scyld Scefing. He spent his youth fists up, browbeating every barstool-brother, bonfiring his enemies. That man began in the waves, a baby in a basket, but he bootstrapped his way into a kingdom, trading loneliness for luxury. Whether they thought kneeling necessary or no, everyone from head to tail of the whale-road bent down: There’s a king, there’s his crown! That was a good king. Later, God sent Scyld a son, a wolf cub, further proof of manhood. Being God, He knew how the Spear-Danes had suffered, the misery they’d mangled through, leaderless, long years of loss, so the Life-lord, that Almighty Big Boss, birthed them an Earth-shaker. Beow’s name kissed legions of lips by the time he was half-grown, but his own father was still breathing. We all know a boy can’t daddy until his daddy’s dead. A smart son gives 20 gifts to his father’s friends in peacetime. When war woos him, as war will, he’ll need those troops to follow the leader. Scyld was iron until the end. When he died, his warriors executed his final orders. They swaddled their king of rings and did just as the Dane had demanded, back when mind and meter could merge in his mouth. 30 They bore him to the harbor, and into the bosom of a ship, that father they’d followed, that man they’d adored. She was anchored and eager to embark, an ice maiden built to bear the weight of a prince. They laid him by the mast, packed tight in his treasure-trove, bright swords, war-weeds, his lap holding a hoard of flood-tithes, each fare-coin placed by a loyal man. He who pays the piper calls the tune. His shroud shone, ringed in runes, sun-stitched. I’ve never heard of any ship so heavy, nor corpse so rich. Scyld came into the world unfavored; his men weighted him as well as the strangers had, who’d once warped him to the waves’ weft. Even ghosts must be fitted to fight. The war-band flew a golden flag over their main man; the salt sea saluted him, so too the storms, and Seyld’s soldiers got drunk instead of crying. They mourned the way men do. No man knows, not me, not you, who hauled Scyld’s hoard to shore, but the poor are plentiful, and somebody create something like this on hamlet act 1 scene 1
No exact word count or page length is mentioned.
However, the instructions indicate that this is a very short in-class critical analysis essay (bluebook essay) with the following structure:
- Introduction
- 12 sentences answering the prompt.
- Body Paragraph(s)
- At least one paragraph (two if time allows).
- Conclusion
- 12 sentences restating the argument or explaining the broader significance.
So the expected length is essentially a brief essay of about 12 analytical paragraphs.
The assignment asks students to:
- Choose one of the three questions (the text you shared corresponds to Question 3).
- Use excerpts from two sources:
- the literary text (Beowulf)
- the critical text (The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell).
- Write a critical analysis essay applying a theoretical perspective to the literary text.
The body paragraph should follow the TEXAS paragraph structure:
- T Topic Sentence: A claim about the literary text that supports the argument.
- E Explain: Explain the critical framework or theoretical lens.
- X Example: Provide textual evidence from Beowulf.
- A Analyze: Explain how the example supports the claim.
- S Summarize / So What: Explain what this analysis reveals about the text.