project as creating a guide for students

For your final writing project, you will create a comprehensive study guide for the course, covering all three units in

fiction, poetry, and drama.

Think of the project as creating a guide for students taking the course in the future. Imagine that they will be taking a more traditional final exam that will ask them to explain literary concepts and analyze texts. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that a study guide for such an exam should not simply be a list of vocabulary words with definitions or plot summaries and character names. Instead, it should identify key concepts and illustrate them by drawing upon and analyzing the short stories, poems, and plays covered in the course.

For example, if you decide that students should know the difference between flat and round characters, you will want to provide both a reasonable definition and an example of each character type to illustrate the difference. Let’s say that you decide that Aminidab, from “The Birth-Mark” is a good example of a flat character. Once you define “flat character,” you will want to provide specific details from the story to help your reader better understand just why Aminidab fits the bill.

It would be virtually impossible to cover every single literary term in the book, of course, so part of your job is to choose which concepts are the most crucial to know.

Some students find it helpful to follow the textbook’s organization and present their study guides chapter-by-chapter or genre-by-genre. While that can be highly effective, some students find that to be stifling and prefer to take a more creative approach.

Your guide should be a minimum of five pages, though there is no upper limit and may be as long as you feel it needs to be to cover the material.