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Writing Samples

Below I have included a few paper's I have written during my undergraduate study in various English classes. There is a brief description of each paper and the document attached. These essay's showcase my best writing. 

 

 

Gender Woman's Studies

Shakespeare

Rhetoric

American Literature

 This course explored the myths, themes, and politics that have shaped the development of American literature since 1865, while casting a particular eye toward the troubled, changing conception of identity in the modern American imagination. As we surveyed such literary movements as Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism, we gave close attention to the ways that literature reflects, responds to, and sometimes influences dramatic social and historical events.

This course will introduce the me to  the theories of rhetoric and their contemporary manifestations/applications in various elements of popular culture. Along the way, I considered forms of argument, questions of language and style, and what happens to rhetorical practice when it moves into the visual realm. 

This course acquainted me with a variety of Shakespeare's plays in the context of his age and his artistic development. In the light of this information and paying close attention to the actual texts, we analyzed major literary and humane issues of the plays.  In addition, we tried to clarify issues of dramatic genre, developing some assumptions about comedy and tragedy as we moved through examples of them.  

This was elective course for me. I was a bit nervous about taking this class since it was focused around "hot button" topics. We were required to write three position papers throughout the semester. I wrote a paper about the book by Michael Cunningham called A Home at the End of the World analyzing the character's and their relationships.

I wrote a paper about the rhetoric of school uniforms for this class. My argument is that uniforms create a "halo effect" which causes people to associate uniformity with the high achiever. I argue that uniforms create emotional and ethical appeals that effect student behavior. 

Here is a paper I wrote during my Shakespeare class. I wrote about Macbeth and his attachment to the pleasure principle in the play. I argued that while Macbeth becomes more reliant on the pleasure principle, Lady Macbeth develops a morality in the play. I think this reflects Shakespeare's tendency to construct strong female characters in his plays. 

For this class, I wrote a paper about Plantation Tradition. I focused my argument on two piece of American literature: Chestnutt's The Goophered Grapevine and Wells-Barnett's A Red Record. I argue that both of these pieces reject Plantation Tradition to present an understanding of prejudice and lack of virtue that is a part of slavery. 

This course was focused on the "queer" Bildungsroman. We examined the way in which the conteporary phenomenon of "coming out" intersects with the age-old rite of passage known as "coming of age." We looked at ways in which various artists have queered this genre and in doing so, immeasurably broadened its scope.

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