M2. Assignment: Creating a Thesis and Outlining Your Essay I…

Outlining is a valuable tool for structuring your essay. It helps you organize your thoughts and guides you towards completing your paper successfully. Think of it as a roadmap to your final essay. In this assignment, you will draft your thesis statement and outline your ideas for your first research paper, which will involve applying a literary criticism approach to analyze one of the following stories (from Modules 2-4):

• “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison

The following elements should be included in your outline:

1. Title: It is a good practice to write the title of your paper as a reflection of your thesis statement.
2. Introduction: Typically, an introduction starts wide with a topic statement and narrows down to your specific topic, ending in the thesis statement. This is your opportunity to establish why readers might be curious about your general topic, catch their attention, or put your essay in context.
3. Topic sentence: Your introduction should start with a sentence that tells the reader the general subject. This is best placed as the first sentence in the paper.
4. Thesis statement: Your introduction must finish with a clear, explicit thesis statement, that informs the readers exactly what your paper will be arguing. This sentence is placed at the end of the first paragraph.
5. Essay map: This element is a part of the thesis. It outlines the proofs (support) that will be used to prove the thesis. (That includes at least 4-5 direct quotes from the story that support your thesis, with commentary for each.)
6. Concluding sentence: A conclusion sentence should wrap up your essay by restating the thesis statement and demonstrating how it was proved by the essay.

Remember that your research paper must focus on one of the short stories listed above, and you should apply one of the literary schools of criticism to build and support your thesis. Please take a moment to review the grading rubric to understand the specific criteria by which your work will be evaluated.

This outline will serve as the foundation for your research paper, which you will develop and refine over the upcoming modules (Modules 2-4). It will help you stay organized and ensure that your paper has a clear and logical structure.