Part 1

Drawing on your growing understanding of the gothic genre, which two stories of the four that we read this week (“The Yellow Wallpaper,” “Luella Miller,” “Afterward,” or “A Jury of Her Peers”) best exemplifies the female gothic? Why? Further, besides qualifying as prime examples of the female gothic, what other elements of the gothic do these stories contain (hint: consider what you’ve learned from “The Female Gothic: Then and Now” as you formulate your response)? Be sure to refer to the assigned terms in A Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms and in last week’s presentation where appropriate, and be sure to offer quotations from the stories as evidence.  To learn how to smoothly integrate quotations into your writing, click here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. 

Your post should be 600-750 words in length.

Structure:

Your post, which is essentially a short essay, should include an introduction (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. that introduces the topic and ends with a clearly worded, 1-2 sentence thesis statement. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Each supporting paragraph (there should be at least 3) should begin with a strong topic sentence (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and should incorporate evidence, including direct quotations from secondary scholarly sources. Direct quotations should be incorporated using the quotation sandwich method (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and proper MLA in-text citations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. The essay should also contain a strong conclusion (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..

Part 2

Offer thoughtful feedback on at least 2 of your classmates’ posts. If a classmate has already received 2 responses, please find another classmate’s post that hasn’t. In addition to responding to your classmates’ arguments, you should also evaluate the quality of the organization of their responses, focusing in particular on the organization of their supporting paragraphs. Are they making effective use of transitions? Do they include strong topic sentences? What could they do to improve their organization?

Each response post should be 100-150 words in length. Please post your responses no later than Sunday night. Failure to respond to classmates’ posts will result in a lowered grade for the assignment. 

Tips for Posting to the Discussion Board:

To submit your discussion board post, click “Reply” at the bottom (this tab is located under these instructions). After that, when you’re done composing your initial post, you’ll click “post reply” (I advise that you first compose your post in a Word document, save it to your computer, and then copy and paste the entry–that way, you don’t risk losing your work). Once others have submitted their initial posts, you’ll be able to view those and reply to the summary of your choice. Note that you will not be able to see any other posts until you have posted Part 1.