Assignment: Write an 800-1000 word MLA essay analyzing two texts from the first half of the course, one “literary” text and one “non-fiction” text. In
this first course in the American Literature sequence, we are reading many journals and autobiographical accounts, generally considered non-literary.
Yet we are also reading some things that are considered Literature, like poetry and fiction. Choose two texts, one from the “non-literary” and one from
the “Literary,” with some interpretive similarity. Use literary techniques to explore the “non-literary”; use traditional analytical techniques to explore the
“Literary.”
Purpose: Your purpose in this assignment is to demonstrate your ability to analyze a piece of literature using the conventional tools of literary analysis.
This assignment will require you to carefully select components of the author’s work as evidence supporting your own argument about what a text
means and how it means it.
Sample Solution
