ENGL 360A. -- Picturing America: Home

Short Paper One

Total Points: 100

Due Date: See your Blackboard section for this class

For Short Paper One, you will be drawing together three, key elements to generate your own interpretation of Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables.  The first element is the text itself – start by selecting an aspect of the text that interests you, be it Hepzibah’s home general store, the Pyncheon family mystery, Holgrave’s daguerreotypes, etc.  Then, identify a recent, critical perspective that engages with your element of interest.  You can use one of the essays in the back of our edition of The House of the Seven Gables or seek out an article or book through the library.  Finally, bring a contemporary (to the novel) piece of writing on Hawthorne or the topic of your choice into your analysis.  You could select a review of the novel, a portion of Hawthorne’s correspondence, etc.  Any short text that provides an additional perspective on the novel will work well here – feel free to use the ones printed in our edition of The House of the Seven Gables or find your own using the resources discussed in class and featured on our Blackboard site.

Your paper will be graded on the following criteria:

• The presence of a clear argument throughout;
• Well-organized, specific support for that argument in the form of quotations and paraphrases;
• A salient connection between your argument and your selected critical perspective;
• Useful introduction of archival support.

Your paper should use a 12-point font and standard margins throughout.  It should be 4 – 5 double-spaced pages and use MLA citation for quotes and paraphrases.  Your final draft is due February 28^th by midnight on Blackboard.