English 398

Th 20  Writing Workshop: Draft of paper #2.

Focusing on Willa Cather's “Paul Case: A Study in Temperament” (available online at http://www.willacather.org/TrollGarden/Paul'sCase.htm), write a 1,250-word essay that is informed by reader-response criticism, deconstructive criticism, or feminist/gender-oriented criticism. You may also compare and contrast how two of these approaches might be used to generate interesting interpretations of Cather's story. While brainstorming for your essay, you should pay attention to the questions suggested by Lynn himself in his chapters on these three approaches, although you may want to consider other questions instead; in any case, you should view the questions as prompts for your own thinking, not as organizing points for your essay. Again, please use the word-count function in your word-processing program to make sure that your essay conforms to the "+/- 10% rule," coming in somewhere between 1,125 - 1,375 words.
    After the Workshop, we'll discuss the requirements of the English major. Please review, prior to coming to class, your Handbook to Undergraduate Studies in English or else the website listed near the top of the course syllabus.

Note: Final drafts of paper #2 are due the following Tuesday, October 25. Please turn in, along with your final version, the peer-review form and worksheet that your reviewer has filled out while commenting on your essay. Part of your grade will be determined by how carefully you considered your peer reviewer’s comments during the process of revision. (This isn’t required, but you should feel free to include a note explaining which of the reviewer’s comments your factored into your revision, and why.)