English 471
Essay1

Choose one of the following topics and construct a well-argued 1,000-word (minimum) essay anchored by a strong thesis, supported with direct citations from the text(s), and in proper MLA format.  Each topic listed contains several questions to consider.  These questions are not the only issues you may deal with, nor do you have to address each one in your essay.  They are included to show you possible angels or aspects of the broader topic on which you may want to focus.  Remember that it is crucial that your thesis have a specific argument; for question 1 you are not simply listing the changes in the Declaration but arguing why they are significant.

1.  Analyzing the initial and revised versions of the Declaration of Independence, write an essay arguing which three changes in the document you consider to be the most important. How and to what ends does the language change between the drafts and what is the significance of such modification?  What are the implications of these changes for nation building?  What type of political and social organization do they foster?

2. Benjamin Franklin sat for more portraits than any of his contemporaries and composed himself differently for almost every one.  This question asks you to "read" one or two of the following portraits of Franklin alongside the Autobiography.  (Or find an appropriate portrait of Franklin on your own--just be sure you have the title, artist's name and date of portrait).  How are the personae he projects in the Autobiography reinforced and/or challenged by the visual representations?  What do they suggest about the ways in which Franklin wanted to be perceived?  About the ways the artists chose to memorialize him?  What are the implications of these images or personas?  What do they suggest about the values and virtues Franklin desired to inculcate, the types of citizens he hoped to shape?

Benjamin Franklin, 1777, engraving by Augustin de Saint Aubin, after a drawing by Charles Chochin

by Evert Duyckinick, date?

 Benjamin Franklin, 1767, by David Martin

4.  Construct an argumentative essay that analyzes one or two authors' responses to and descriptions of the American landscape.  How, specifically, does each depict the New World?  Most importantly, what are the implications of these portrayals?  What accounts for their similarities and/or differences?  What connections are forged between landscape and identity, between bodies of land and corporeal bodies?

5. Although the political experiment of the United States emerged as a product of Enlightenment thought, its early writers and thinkers often were preoccupied with darkness and irrationality. Analyze representations of the irrational or the nightmarish in one or two stories we have read.  How and to what ends do the authors depict the uses and limits of rationality?  What issues does this allow them to explore and what critiques does it enable them to make?  How does such imagery forward the overarching themes and patterns of the work(s)?  How do nightmarish images resonate with the notion of the American Dream so central to national identity in the United States and rooted in the mythology Franklin helps create in his Autobiography?

6. Choose your own topic.   If you choose this option you must turn in a typed, 100-word memo to me five days before the paper is due outlining your line of argument and the significance of your topic.