Lord of the Flies Final Essay

Borger

Prompt:  Write an essay discussing one of the two prompts below.  Use quotes to support your argument.

Discussion of the prompt:  Choose one of the prompts below.  Use two quotes per paragraph to support your argument.  Papers without quotes cannot earn a grade higher than a C. 

1. Discuss whether Jack is basically bad and Ralph is basically good.

2. Discuss how Piggy and/or Simon are valuable to the maintenance of civilization on the island.

3. Choose three items and discuss their significance within the novel.

4. Based on what happens in LOTF, discuss whether human beings are basically good or basically evil.

Grading Criteria:

See rubric

Follow MLA format

Proper citation of quotes

Clear thesis statement

Clear final statement (exigency)

Tag + Quote + Cite + Explanation = Good Citation Format[1]

Initially, Jack face is described as being “crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness” and his eyes are described as being “frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger” (20).  This description shows that blah blah blah.

Note how sentence punctuation goes at the END of the parenthesis, NOT the end of the quote.

The conch becomes important immediately in the novel.  During the second meeting, Ralph says “We can’t have everybody talking at once….I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak.  He can hold it when he’s speaking” (33).  The conch shell becomes blah blah yadda yadda.

When using block quotations (4 or more lines long), use the following example as a model:[2]

     The trickster figure, while crucial to Native American mythos, also surfaces in African-American mythology.  In explaining folkloric representations of the devil, Hurston emphasizes that

…he is not the terror that he is in European folklore.  He is a powerful trickster who often successfully competes with God.  There is a strong suspicion that the devil is an extension of the story makers while God is the supposedly impregnable white masters. (306)

In this statement, Hurston suggests that African-American storytellers identify strongly with the trickster figure.  It is this identification that helped keep the idea of pride and rebellion alive during the hardships of slavery.

Note how sentence punctuation goes at the end of the quote vs. end of the citation.  Also, no quotation marks for a block quote—the offset indentation serves that purpose.