NCC ENG251 Film & Literature Final Essay

Write the essay assignment below. Trace a theme between the story, "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin and the film, "I've Loved You So Long."

You are welcome to bring in previous material such as "Lars and the Real Girl" or one of the stories or essays.

Your essay should be a MINIMUM of four pages (with a fifth page that is a Works Cited page) typed, double spaced, Times New Roman font and MLA formatted (video links below to help), which means NO extra spacing or bold or excess quotes to pad the length of your essay.  In other words, if you add in extra spaces between paragraphs or make your margins bigger or include lengthy block quotes to lengthen your essay, I will reduce your earned grade by an entire letter grade for not following MLA formatting.

**Include at least three parenthetical citations (and a Works Cited page) in your essay, formatted correctly. You may cite from credible secondary sources as well.

**    I will not accept late essays.   Essay due by Friday, Dec. 17th before 4 p.m.

ESSAY:

"I've Loved You So Long" and "Sonny's Blues"

1.)  "I've Loved You So Long"

Amazon link - https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B087QPCRGX/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

Tubi link - https://tubitv.com/movies/527948/ive-loved-you-so-long?utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed

2.) "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin - PDF of story  - https://uwm.edu/cultures-communities/wp-content/uploads/sites/219/2018/01/SonnysBlues.Baldwin.pdf

3.) You may wish to focus on a theme related to Disability Studies or community or how people treat / should treat others who are different. Your essay will compare and contrast the film and short story or essay.  Identify a theme to consider in both.

Write an essay in which you explore one of the themes we discussed or one you explored on your own. A few examples:

* Transformation of sibling because of sibling-to-sibling relationship / growth

* Literature and music as means of expressions as well as medium or buffer for the self

* Legal versus moral distinctions

Be sure to look at the ways in which the characters either enact or challenge convention and how they embrace, undermine or reject the theme you select as it plays out.

Be sure to include specific details like character's choices, their statements, their behaviors, etc. to support your overall ideas. Explain your ideas in your own words as well as offering up examples of how they are realized in the films and literature. 

Your essay should be a MINIMUM of four pages typed (with a fifth page that is a Works Cited page), double spaced, Times New Roman font and MLA formatted, which means NO extra spacing or bold or excess quotes to pad the length of your essay. 

In other words, if you add in extra spaces between paragraphs or make your margins bigger or include lengthy block quotes to lengthen your essay, I will reduce your earned grade by an entire letter grade for not following MLA formatting.

 Include at least three parenthetical citations (and a Works Cited page) in your essay, formatted correctly.

You are encouraged to incorporate any of the ideas we have discussed in class, including those about the literature as well as themes we've looked at prior to the works (i.e. empathy, toxic masculinity, etc).

HELPFUL INFORMATION  (I strongly recommend you review - you will lose points for incorrect formatting, excessive grammar errors, poorly constructed thesis statements, referring to an author by their first name, etc):

MLA WORKS CITED PAGE

Review this video - https://youtu.be/4Vo8_Jw71JI

IN-TEXT CITATIONS

Review this video -  https://youtu.be/HTaUHS1mnv

MLA ESSAY FORMATTING

Review this video -  https://youtu.be/24Y31UrG2q4

* Formatting quotes in your essay (MLA style) - https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/

  * Argument thesis statement -  https://youtu.be/8wxE8R_x5I0

* Synthesis thesis statement - https://youtu.be/c7HtCHtQ9w0

* Developing a paragraph - https://youtu.be/XA-joXQKyXE

* Review "Common Errors" (i.e. differences between "it's" vs. "its" and "their" vs. "there" vs. "they're", etc) - http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/proofing_grammar.shtml  AND https://www.grammarly.com/blog/top-10-student-writing-mistakes-finals-edition/

* Titles of essays, articles, books, and poems - italicize or use quotation marks?  Read the difference here -  http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/punctuation/titles-using-italics-and-quotation-marks.html

* Refer to an author or artist in your essay first by the person's full name, then subsequently by the person's last name.  For example, you would mention "Sylvia Plath" initially, then refer to her throughout your essay as "Plath".  See the first entry here - https://www2.bc.edu/~wilsonc/tenc.html

* THESIS STATEMENTS IN LITERARY ANALYSIS PAPERS

http://www.syracusecityschools.com/tfiles/folder716/unit%2003-Thesisstatementc.pdf