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Essay Instructions: Prompt: Readers may see Ellison’s Invisible Man as a coming-of-age story, or bildungsroman, which narrates the unnamed narrator’s moral/social/emotional development as influenced by a series of events or influential mentors. As we learn in the prologue, the unnamed narrator’s “coming-of-age” involves what he learns about personal responsibility over the course of the novel. Readers may also apply existentialist philosophy to the novel in a way that places the unnamed narrator in the role of “existentialist hero.” In this essay, discuss the narrator’s development throughout the novel in the context of these literary themes – “coming-of-age” stories and the “existentialist hero.”

Suggested Organization:
1. First, introduce your essay with a clear introduction (ending with a thesis statement) which identifies the central idea/focus of your essay. What/who has the narrator become at the end of this novel (the epilogue); what has the narrator learned?
2. Next, write a series of paragraphs which support your thesis. Most likely, each paragraph will explain one event from which the narrator learns a lesson or one character who teaches the narrator a lesson (i.e. the lesson referred to in your thesis statement). These paragraphs should contain an appropriate amount of textual evidence which may be in the form of paraphrase and/or direct quotation. Hint – each paragraph should focus on a single event or character.
3. Finally, write a clear and concise conclusion which extends the thesis. In other words, why is the theme/lesson you identify in the thesis statement important in the “real world” outside the novel? What are readers of Ellison’s novel to do or think as a result of reading Ellison’s Invisible Man?

Essay Instructions: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

"Our Lady of Peace" is one of short story in Drinking coffee elsewhere. develop a thesis that addresses the stroy's conflict between idealism and nihilism.

class note
"our lady of peace"
1)Bildungsroman
2)Standford Prison Experiment
3)Drink on Hip Hop(p.59)
4)Pushing the envelop(p.61)
5)sadistic power
6)lowered expectations of education
7)futility (p.61, 63)
8)easy platitudes(p.64, 66)
9)PTSS(p.64)
10)nihilism grows (p.66,68,70)
11)sheba's complete intelligence(p.71,73)
12)story's death of hope(p.74)
13)Lynnea's bloodlust(p.81)

don't use quotations more than 20%
define a term

In Syllabus
The A paper: In additions to adhering to the conventions of the English language in terms of grammar and mechanics and in addition to having a clear organizational structure, the A paper must be written with "blood and passion" and incorporate relevant examples from real life to show that your essay is not just some bland, perfunctory exercise limited to abstractions. When choosing an approach for your essay, always write from your gut and remember that if you're not passionately interested in your paper, no one else will be.