Fall 2004

Essay 2: Analyzing Evidence
Narratives about the Savage of Aveyron

Overview:

One of the OED definitions of sensibility relevant to the late 18^th- and early 19^th- centuries when the “wild child” was found is as follows:

2. a. Power of sensation or perception; the specific function of any of the organs of sense (obs.). Now often, the (greater or less) readiness of an organ or tissue to respond to sensory stimuli; sensitiveness.

Sensibility is a fundamental capacity, dependent on brain and nerves, for reception of, and responsiveness to, the world. Education depends on sensation or the “exercise” of sensibility.

The question for Essay #2: What implied argument do Itard’s report and/or Truffaut’s film make about the function of one of the senses in Victor’s education? You are expected to use close reading to develop your claim. And remember that your claim must be arguable.

Your section leader has chosen one of the five senses (►sight, ►hearing, ►touch, ►smell, or ►taste) and may ask you to write about Itard's narrative, Truffaut's film, or both.  Keep in mind that in the Humanities Core Course a text can be many things: a passage from a book of philosophy, a scene in a play, a newspaper story, a photograph, a painting, an individual shot in a film, and even architectural details from a building.

Your essay should be 4-5 pages and will count for 30% of your writing grade. 

Preparing for the Essay:

Pre-writing will be especially important in this assignment, because you will be working inductively from all the evidence you have gathered.  You should watch key scenes in the film several times, while taking notes on specific details, and mark up the Itard section of your Reader with reminders to yourself about key terms.  Your evidence may fill several pre-writing grids. 

Read "Analyzing Narrative" (48-52) and "Analyzing Film" (53-57) in the Writer's Handbook before beginning.

A successful essay will do the following:

• Provide a detailed but coherent close reading that is unified by an arguable thesis.
• Demonstrate an ability to go beyond competently explaining the literal meaning of the words, phrases, and lines that make up the speech to make a logical argument about what the text suggests.
• Give the reader sufficient evidence to support the argument for your particular interpretation, even if the text is ambiguous.
• Connect all claims to your evidence (in the form of specific quotations from the text) with logical warrants.
• Punctuate all quotations correctly and use proper citation format.
• Keep the reader on track by means of clear signals, clear paragraphing, interesting topic sentences, and relevant evidence in the form of quotations from the text.

Thinking about Audience . . .

Study guides about texts often provide superficial plot summaries that give the reader little sense of a literary work's language or the fact that literary works often transmit complex or conflicting messages.  Consider how your essay could provide considerably more depth and argumentation that a traditional study guide aimed at college students.