KIM WOODS

First, you must choose a story that goes with the prompt you have chosen.     You only need a summary paragraph of each articles. The peer-reviewed scholarly articles must be directly about the story you choose to write about, not just about the subject matter of the story.   You are reading articles ABOUT the story you are writing about. Please choose an appropriate story from the Week 1 assignment. Also, read your Week 5 assignment for the final paper evaluation criteria.  

               Week 5 assignment

In this assignment, you will refine that thesis and essay even further and develop your argument. You are required to incorporate your instructor’s feedback in your Final Paper and to take peer feedback into consideration. In your paper,

• Create a detailed introduction that contains a thesis that offers a debatable claim based on one of the prompts on the list.

• Apply critical thought by analyzing the primary source you selected from the approved List of Literary Works. Avoid summary and personal reflection.

• Develop body paragraphs that contain clear topic sentences and examples that support the argument.

• Write a conclusion that reaffirms the thesis statement and includes a summary of the key ideas in essay.

• Apply your knowledge of literary elements and other concepts in your response to the prompt. Reference the list of literary elements found in Week Two of the course and discussion forums.

• Incorporate research from the primary and secondary sources.

  Week 2 assignment

  For this assignment, you will write an annotated bibliography on three sources. For detailed information on how to create your Annotated Bibliography, please see this Sample Annotated Bibliography.

  In your Annotated Bibliography, you will

• Copy and paste the writing prompt you chose to explore in Week One into a Word Document.
• Restate the working thesis you created in Week One below your writing prompt.
• In this same document, identify your primary source (your short story) and two secondary, academic sources.
• Summarize each source and explain how the source supports your working thesis. These summaries should be 100 to 150 words for each entry.

For the Annotated Bibliography assignment, you will write annotations for three sources. One source should be a primary source. Next, you will choose two secondary sources that are additional to the text.

The two sources you locate must be academic sources and come from peer-reviewed journals or other scholarly publications. For information on finding sources within the Ashford Library, please view the ENG125 - Literature Research tutorial.

The Annotated Bibliography includes a citation of the source in APA format. It also includes a brief summary of the source.

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Prompt #2:“In some stories, characters come into conflict with the culture in which they live.”

Working thesis:

Gregor Samsa’s physical transformation into a vermin is a physical manifestation of his already

alienated state and demonstrates how his family viewed him as a thing instead of a son or brother

that they loved.

Kafka, F. (1990). The metamorphosis. New York, NY: Scribner Paperback Fiction.

The Metamorphosis begins when Gregor Samsa wakes up and discovers he has been transformed

into a large insect. The story tells how he and his family deal with his transformation, which a

focus on the dehumanization that Gregor faces in his job and his family role. Gregor attempts to

communicate, but cannot and, isolated and misunderstood, he slowly deteriorates. Kafka uses

Gregor’s transformation into an insect as a metaphor for how modern life squashes our ability to

interrelate with others and create meaning in our lives.

Ryan, S. (2007). Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung: Transformation, metaphor, and the perils of

assimilation. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 43(1), 1-18.

This source by Simon Ryan explores how Kafka’s Jewishness created anxiety about his body,

particularly since anti-Semitism pervaded his Czech culture. The stereotypes of Jewishness did

not allow Jewish people to easily assimilate into the dominant culture, though many Jews

attempted to do so. Gregor Samsa’s transformation into an insect is a metaphor of the power and

pervasiveness of anti-Semitism and the inability of a Jewish man to fully assimilate. The insect

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body symbolizes how Jewish people were viewed and Gregor’s quiet extinction foreshadows the

Holocaust. This source helps to define how body image, coupled with Jewishness, can alienate a

person from the culture around him.

Sokel, W. H. (1983). From Marx to myth: The structure and function of self-alienation in

Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Literary Review, 26(4), 485-496.

Walter Sokel discusses the concept of self-alienation and how Kafka’s story represents it in a

literal way. Using a Marxist analysis, Sokel shows how labor, as it is defined in the story, is

structured within a capitalist system where the worker -- Gregor -- is alienated from the product

of his labor. Therefore, his work has no meaning to him. However, describing this as a “mythical

setting,” Sokel shows how Gregor assumes guilt for his inability to provide labor and, as a result,

dies without ever recovering his humanity. This source will help define why Gregor turned into

an insect and how the economic system alienated him from himself and his family.

 Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Source

The term primary source refers to

• Original documents: Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records, etc.

• Creative works: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art, etc.

The primary source is the story, poems, or play you choose to write about. Please see the List of Literary Works to choose a primary source. The source must come from this list.

Secondary Source

Secondary sources are publications like textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias, etc. An appropriate secondary source to use for your literary analysis is a journal article that interprets and offers analysis of a literary work.

The two sources you locate must be academic sources and come from peer-reviewed journals or other scholarly publications. For information on finding sources within the Ashford Library, please view the ENG125 - Literature Research tutorial.