Practice Outline: (American Short Stories)

Purpose of this essay:

• To establish, discuss, and analyze literary elements of an American short story.
• To be able to demonstrate understanding of literary elements in a short story through analysis of the text.

In your essay you should:

• Describe the main character from one of the stories. What are his or her strengths and weaknesses as a character? For example, is the character strong, smart, loving, brave, loyal, hopeful, or independent? You must use quoted examples from the readings to explain and support your thoughts on the character's traits.

Consider the following for the structure of the essay:

• Introduction paragraph: Introduce the topic in general with a hook and a short summary of the short story (with author and "title") leading to a thesis statement describing a main character's positive and negative traits.
• Body paragraphs: Each body should describe either a positive or a negative trait of the main character you have chosen, but you should have many bodies and describe many traits. Discuss how these characteristics are shown in the story by using quotes from the story. Please keep in mind that you do not need to mention specific paragraphs or page numbers from the story in your essay. Writing something like: In the story, Jim says, "..............................." is enough (Don't write the quote in italics in your essay, however).
• Conclusion paragraph: Summarize your essay and give your overall thoughts on the story and the character.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

The Gift of the Magi is a beloved short story by the American writer O Henry which was first publish... View the full answer