ENG 218 / FILM 218 Essay 2
Essay Requirements:
1. Students must choose a short story, novella, or novel (anything except what we used in class) and a film version of that text. Please be sure to use a work of fiction. You must choose a work with a first person na
ator. If you are unsure if the work you’ve chosen has a first person na
ator, please feel free to contact me and ask.
2. There are three goals of the essay:
a. To analyze both the literature and the film using the text and film formalist elements. It is not expected that all elements will be used in the student’s essay. Students should focus on formalist elements that feature prominently in the text and film chosen (lecture materials from Week 2).
. To evaluate the film as an adaptation of the text chosen. Focus of this discussion should include what type of adaptation the film is (loose, intermediate, close), why it constitutes that sort of adaptation type, what was added / cut / kept between the text and the film adaptation, and whether the film was a successful adaption and explain the reasoning behind that position (lecture materials from Week 1).
c. To use outside research to expand the analysis / discussion of the text and/or film (lecture materials from Week 3).
3. Do not use first person (I, my, me, we, us) or second person (you, your) when writing the essay (unless quoting a source).
4. The audience for the paper is an academic audience. Academic audiences expect very few (if any) sentence level e
ors and a professional, formal tone.
5. Essays must follow MLA format, both in appearance and citation (works cited AND in-text citation). Refreshers on MLA format are on the course Blackboard web links section.
6. The minimum length of each essay is 5 pages. Essays may exceed the minimum; however, please do not go over 10 pages. Essays shorter than 5 pages will be penalized one grade (ten points) for each missing page. The works cited does not count towards page count.
7. The minimum amount of sources required for each essay is three. One must be the text, and one must be the film. Students are encouraged to use more than this, but three is the minimum. Suggestions for sources that will help expand on the analysis are (but are not limited to):
a. Movie reviews (can be found online on IMDB.com – do not use the User Comments, you want to use actual critical reviews)
. DVD extras
c. Actor / director interviews
d. Historical / biographic information
e. Scholarly articles written about the play and/or film
f. Psychological theories connected to character motivation
g. Investigation of music used in the score
8. Essays will be due in two formats: hard (paper) copy and soft (file copy submitted to the drop box in Blackboard) copy. If you cannot get the drop box to work in Blackboard, please send the file copy as an e-mail attachment. The due date for the paper is listed on the course schedule.
Sources students CANNOT use for this paper include Sparknotes / CliffsNotes / GradeSaver, study guides, and / or free essay websites.