Elements of Literature, Instruction Page

Upon the completion of your course of studies, you will be exposed to 5 American Short Story authors and 5 American Poets.  Each unit will contain an example of the author's work as well as a biography of their lives.  It will also allow you to use your writing skills to improve sentence structure and written communication skills.  

What you will need to complete this course of study: Elements of Literature, Fourth Edition Copyright 1997, Holt, Rinehardt and Winston, Inc.  

After you have read the work and the biography, you will be asked 5 True/false questions.  These questions are designed to give you a greater understanding of the literature and to prepare you for the essay.  You will NOT  be graded on the True/false questions, therefore do not hesitate to guess if you are unsure of the correct answer.  

After you have completed the quiz, you will be asked to write an on-line essay about a specific aspect of the story or author.  You can view a sample essay by clicking here.  Once you have completed the essay, you will e-mail it back to the instructor.  It will be graded and returned to you within 3 to 5 days.  Additionally, your grade will be recorded on the GRADE PAGE.  Confidentiality will be maintained by having your grade matched to your User I.D.

Here are some tips for constructing your essay:

1. Create an Intro Paragraph.  Restate the question in this paragraph.  If you plan on discussing more than one aspect of the story, discuss each one briefly in the intro paragraph.  

2. Use one paragraph to discuss each idea.  For example, if you have introduced  Ray Bradbury's:

• Use of science fiction in his stories

• Use of the "small town setting" in his stories

• Use of government interference in citizen's daily lives in his stories

You would write one  paragraph for each idea.  

3. Write a Conclusion Paragraph. Sum up your ideas in one final paragraph and restate the logic of your thinking.

Feel free to do the assignments in any order that you want.  You can do one poet then one story author, or your favorite author first, etc.  You can refer to the GRADE PAGE to determine if you have completed a specific author.  

Each essay is worth 10 points.  The grading scale is posted below:

You may be more comfortable writing your essay in Microsoft Word and copying it and pasting it into the web site.  THIS IS PERFECTLY O.K.  We would recommend that you save your Word Document, just in case.  If you are ready, let's begin: