Examining Zora Neale Hurston’s Work
Instructions for the Short Response Paper:
Write a 2-3 page essay responding to “The Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. Using reader response critical theory, provide your opinion on the work’s strengths and/or shortcomings. This short paper will demonstrate that you have internalized and understood Hurston’s work and that you can summarize the material and substantiate your reaction to it. In addition to your response on Hurston’s work, synthesize a main topic in your response with a similar topic in “Bullet in the Brain.”
What you should include:
- An introduction- You should discuss one specific part of the story that drew your interest and summarize the material.
- Your short response paper can be centered around key important ideas highlighted in the work. Use direct quotations from the work.
- A body – Write a clear and organized reaction to this work. Consider how the works are from two different literary time periods. What aspects of the time period help shape the style, tone, and dialogue of the stories? How are the stories related to real-life families, your own life, and/or society?
- Brainstorm and discuss, briefly, a similar topic in Wolff’s piece and explain how it contributes to your overall interpretation of Hurston’s work.
- Evaluate the merit of the work, its strengths and weaknesses, and its completeness or lack thereof.
- A Conclusion – Specify whether you would recommend this story to others and why. How can it influence other readers?
What to Avoid:
- Plagiarism.
- Misuse of AI/Not disclosing the use of AI
- Writing a chronological summary of the work.
- Writing a thesis paper. This is not an argumentative essay, and it goes beyond stating and proving a point.
- Writing general opinions or opinions that are not substantiated by evidence from the text.
- Repetitiveness
Submission Instructions:
- The paper is to be clear and concise and students will lose points for improper grammar, punctuation, and misspellings.
- The paper should be formatted per the current MLA and 2-3 pages in length.
