Everyday Use by Alice Walker

Assignment: Following the guidelines below, write four paragraphs in response to Sonnys Blues. Each paragraph will be worth 20 points; formatting and proper citation will be worth another 20 points.

You will need to include quotations from the story in at least two of your four paragraphs. The quotations from the story should include proper parenthetical citations in MLA style, and an MLA style Works Cited page.

Each paper should include exactly four paragraphs, including the following
1) Summarize the story in one well-developed paragraph. The summary should include all of the major plot points, but avoid minor details that are insignificant to the plot.
2) Analyze at least one literary element at work in the story. In analyzing the element(s), you should discuss how the element is used and why it is significant. The literary elements were discussed in class. I have also included a list below. (This would be a good place for one of your quotations.)
3) Interpret the theme of the story. Figure out the meaning of the story beneath the surface level you summarized for paragraph one. Your articulation of the theme should be more than a word. It should be a statement that captures the works main idea and its universal importance. (See further explanation of theme below in the list of literary elements.)
4) Synthesize (compare) the story with at least one other work of literature, movie, song, TV show, play, etc. Make connections between the pieces. You must compare the story with something specific that was made by someone else; anecdotes or personal reflections are not acceptable for this requirement.
Everything in this paper should reflect your own ORIGINAL thoughts and voice. No research on the Internet or in the library should be used.
Bring three typed copies of your full draft on Saturday 04, for peer review workshop. The final paper must be submitted via Canvas by

Review of Literary Elements
PLOT: The important events that make up a story.
SETTING: Stories actually have two types of setting:  Physical and Chronological.

The physical setting is of course where the story takes place.  The where can be very generala small farming community, for exampleor very specifica two story white frame house at 739 Hill Street in Scott City, Missouri.

Likewise, the chronological setting, the when, can be equally general or specific.
CHARACTER: What type of individuals are the main characters?  Brave, cowardly, bored, obnoxious?  If you tell me that the protagonist (main character) is brave, you should be able to tell where in the story you got that perception.
In literature, as in real life, we can evaluate character three ways:  what the individual says, what the individual does, and what others say about him or her.

SYMBOL: Simply put, a symbol is something which means something else.  Frequently its a tangible physical thing which symbolizes something intangible.  The Seven/Eleven stores understood that a few years ago when they were selling roses with a sign saying, A Rose Means I Love You. This element also includes figurative language such as metaphor, simile, and personification.

POINT OF VIEW: Point of View is the narrative point of view, how the story is toldmore specifically, who tells it. There are two distinctly different types of point of view: First Person and Third Person.
In the First Person point of view, the story is told by a character within the story, a character using the first person pronoun, I.
If the narrator is the main character, the point of view is first person protagonist. If the narrator is a secondary character, the point of view is first person observer. 
In the Third Person point of view, the story is not told by a character but by an invisible author, using the third person pronoun (he, she, or it) to tell the story.

THEME: Theme isnt so much an element of fiction as much as the result of the entire story.  The theme is the main idea the writer of the story wants the reader to understand and remember.

You may have used the word Moral in discussing theme; but its not a good synonym because moral implies a positive meaning or idea.  And not all themes are positive.

One wordlove, for examplemay be a topic; but it cannot be a theme.

A theme is a statement about a topic.

For example: The theme of a story may be that love is the most important thing in the world.  Thats a clich, of course, but it is also a theme.