Extra work// Practice for Course Exam.

Hello,

If you are reading this, you have either been given a grade you didn’t care much for through a
previous assignment or you are practicing for the Course Exam – or both.

To receive a grade on this task you can choose to write one of two texts; a comparative essay or an
argumentative essay. The first is probably easier to write but the latter covers more of the course
content and might award you a higher grade. Whichever you choose your essay should span 1-3
pages and be written in times new roman, font size 12, 1,5 spacing. Do not forget to include a
headline and to divide into paragraphs in a comprehensive manner.

More detailed instructions for the two options will follow below;

Comparative essay
If you choose to write this type of essay you do not need to quote or cite any sources, although you
might want or need to look some things up as you write along. For this assignment, choose two
poems from one or different literary periods which we have discussed. Once this is done your
mission is to compare them.

Regarding structure your essay should start off with an introduction where you introduce what you
are going to investigate or compare. This is quite often a theme, such as” love” or” death”, etc. Of
course, your poems could also have very different themes, in which case you should endeavor to
highlight their differences instead. You should mention the names of the works you are going to
discuss, and their respective authors. The last sentence of this paragraph should be the thesis
statement. In the thesis statement you try to express the very essence of what you are going to write
about, your entire essay boiled down into one sentence. It helps if it is easy to understand and is
catchy. See examples below. Marked in red is the thesis statement. Your thesis statement should not
be marked. It is always put last in the introductory paragraph and in this way, we know where it is,
without it being marked.

Ex;
Smoke and Industry

In many works of the romantic age vapors or smoke, clouds or fog is a recurring theme, as is the case
with the poems I will bring to light. They also contain a sense of awe and fear, which may have its
natural explanation in new inventions of that time. William Blake’s” The Tyger” and Percy Shelley’s
”Mutability” both deal with the industrialization of society.

Every paragraph that follows should deal with one main point that supports your reasoning in some
way. How this connects to your thesis statement should be clearly expressed in the topic sentence of
each paragraph. The topic sentence is the sentence that comes first in a paragraph. It should cover as
much of what you will deal with in the coming paragraph as possible. Examples follow below, topic
sentences are marked in green for demonstrational purposes, please do not do this yourself.

Ex.1;

The poem ”The Tyger'' deals with the industrial revolution through highlighting the difference
between something created naturally and a locomotive. That said poem deals with specifically a
locomotive is quite clear to see. Everything hints at it, from the ”Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright”, which
no doubt conveys the heat of the furnace in the first locomotives, to ”Did he who made the Lamb
make thee?” which seems to question the modern and man-made form of propulsion. It seems to
pose the question ”did man or god make this?”. The poem also touches upon the fear or scepticism
of locomotives which was quite widespread at the time. The middle section of the poem speaks of an
anomaly in that which is natural ”what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart?”. What could make a
locomotive emote? What could make it feel? Nothing.

Marked in orange above is a piece of text that has got nothing to do in this paragraph. It does
concern the thesis statement, but it does not have anything to do with the topic sentence. So, in this
scenario, either the topic sentence has to be broadened or this piece has to be removed or relocated
to another paragraph where it belongs.

This should be done again for each new paragraph, until you have touched upon what you set out to
discuss or until you have amassed 5 paragraphs of” body” text. The paragraphs with topic sentences
are considered the” body” of the text.

Once the body is finalized you write a concluding statement where you tie up any loose ends and
make sure to tie the two works you have analyzed together. You may have treated them separately
above, or you may have already compared them to one another, but either way this is where you
make your final effort to tie all that you have written to the umbrella of your thesis statement.
Argumentative essay
What is written above, in the section dealing comparative essays, is also true for argumentative
essays, but in an argumentative you should include;

● An introduction with a background and a thesis statement

● Topic sentences at the start of each paragraph in the body
● A paragraph for conclusion.

The difference is that while you can be even more expressive in your own opinions in this type of text
it would aid your case a great deal if you were to include external sources (this is a prerequisite for
the higher grades).

● Sources

Another difference is that in a paragraph before the concluding paragraph you should deal with any
opposition that you can imagine facing. What contrary beliefs may other people hold to your
opinions? How can you convince them that your view is the correct one?

● Oppositional paragraph

To invoke curiosity and commitment, argumentative essays often hook their readers by posing a lot
of questions in their introductions, which are later answered in the body of the text. It is even quite
common for the headline itself to be a question, everything in an effort for the text to draw eyes and
be read. The thesis statement, however, is never a question.

Regarding content when dealing with this argumentative essay you should pick one poem from any
era we have dealt with and argue why this work is typical for the time period or why it isn’t. Of
course, this requires you to make some research into the specific period you choose so that you can
make that comparison in a meaningful way.