How to Tackle an Argumentative Essay

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ...and succeed!!

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 The Argumentative Essay is
a fundamental
part of university studies.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Good for:
*Essays in a variety of academic
disciplines

(Tip: ask your tutor)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 It works best
if you are discussing a response
to an issue or examining a situation
or state of being

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Be clear what question you are
answering

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 ‘Dystopic fiction often relies upon
setting to illuminate and reinforce
the horrors of the vision presented.’

How far and in what ways, in your

opinion, do two novels you have
studied, support or refute this
statement?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 In other words…

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Dystopic fiction
uses
settings
to
illuminate and reinforce the horrors
depicted.

How and in what ways

do you think this is true or false?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Now ask questions about the
question

this will help you to identify the

material out of which your argument
will emerge

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

onsdag den 4 maj 2011
 Does dystopic fiction rely upon setting to reinforce the horror
presented?

Are the horrors illuminated and reinforced in both essays

through their use of setting? How?

Are the texts’ treatment of settings similar or different? How?

What have other readers said about the settings in the novels?
(AO3)

How has the context in which the texts were created come to
have an influence on the presentation of settings in the novels?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Now research the primary texts to
find evidence to support your ideas
and opinions

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Never Let Me Go The Handmaid’s Tale

Hailsham Places in the time before

The Cottages The Red Centre

The Care Centres The Commander’s House

Norfolk (Lost Things) The town & shops

Madame’s House The Wall & the library

The Boat The Doctor’s surgery

The tree of plastic bags The black van

Ishiguro & Atwood

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 This in turn must be supported by
secondary research
(essays, other books, reviews etc.)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 All of this research must be brought
together in a detailed plan that
follows a logical order so you can
present your ideas and conclusion

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 The plan will consist of a series of
focused ideas
(which will become topic sentences
that begin each paragraph)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 As the essay is written this plan must be
converted into a well composed essay using-

Controlled sentence structure

Technical accuracy
Terminology appropriate to literary studies
Argument discourse markers
(usually to connect ideas between
paragraphs)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 If it is well crafted, a reader should
be able to backward engineer your
essay and arrive at your original
plan!

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 The Bad Plan

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Paragraph 1
The arrangement of space is vital to dystopic literature

Both novels rely on spaces to define their respective worlds

Kaplan quotation (?)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P2
Atwood compartmentalises spaces

The shops / Prayer Scrolls are examples of this

Orwell also does this in ‘1984’

In contrast Hailsham students seem to have spatial freedom

‘A Clockwork Orange’ shows how human machines aren’t

machines and rebel when restricted (?)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P3
Atwood presents a lack of personal space and the sense of
always being watched

C.S Lewis quotation (?)

Ishiguro’s characters also suffer from having a lack of personal

spaces which shows they are controlled

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P4
‘Never Let Me Go’ is divided into 3 sections which causes us to
‘settle in’ with Kathy (?)

‘Cruelty is bad’ quotation (?)

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ presents fragmented scenes that are non-

chronological (?)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P5
The settings in Atwood’s novel are aesthetically pleasing but at
the same time reflect the regime. (?)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P6
Both novels contain ‘a type of pressure’ (?)

Ishiguro’s novel is agoraphobic while Atwood’s novel is

claustrophobic (?)

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Here is a well formed skeletal
structure for the same essay plan
Remember, the question is…

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Dystopic fiction
uses
settings
to
illuminate and reinforce the horrors
depicted.

How / In what ways

do you think this is true or false?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P1 Setting IS important in illuminating and reinforcing the
horrors of dystopic literature although Atwood and Ishiguro’s
treatment of setting is very different, yielding very different tones
and modes of feeling.

Gender equality is a key facet of an advanced modern society.

P2 Atwood’s presentation of Gilead focuses on a political and

cultural landscape and so the range of settings is broader in its

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P3 That having been said, Gilead is composed of
compartmentalised spaces that are determined by the rigid roles
imposed upon the occupants which generates a claustrophobic
tone to the text.

In contrast Ishiguro’s characters operate in spaces with no

clearly defined or personalised spaces which become looser as
the novel continues. The result of this is diametrically opposed
to Atwood’s treatment – ‘Never Let Me Go’ is agoraphobic and
the characters are consequently vulnerable and have nowhere to
hide.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P4 The settings arguably reflect the biographical and cultural
influences of the novels. Both Gilead and the world of the
Hailsham students would be familiar to their respective target
audiences although at the same time they are disconcertingly
altered – they become palimpsests and thus serve to reinforce
dystopic literature’s purpose to warn and force us to reflect on
our own cultural experience.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P5 The authors’ treatment of setting is inseparable from their
use of narrative perspective and chronological structure. It
becomes apparent that memory and the act of retelling serve to
intensify and reinforce the sense of claustrophobia and
agoraphobia established in the novels.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P6 In both cases the novels present ambiguous endings to their
novels, making use of appropriately shaped settings. Atwood
avoids a reductive conclusion to Offred’s tale with the uncertainty
of the black van (before tearing us out of time and place in the
‘Historical Notes’) while Kathy is left by the roadside in tears
before driving off and leaving us there to watch her vanish on the
horizon beside the tree strewn with the abandoned detritus of
our disposable society.

In both cases the final settings serve to leave the reader with a
responsibility to continue to reflect on events – an essential
quality of dystopic fiction.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 P7 In conclusion, the novels DO reinforce and illuminate the dystopic
visions presented by their respective authors. Rather than simply
provide a physical environment in which the plot can unfold, the
locations come to embody the agenda of the forces working against
the protagonists; Gilead’s ever tightening grip of control and the
learned helplessness of the clones in the light of the faceless culture of
‘donation’ are ever present.

Offred and Kathy cannot escape because Gilead and the cloning
programme infuse the environment they inhabit. This sense of
inescapability is essential to the genre in which the novels reside and it
invites us to consider anew the ways in which we too are being shaped
by social and cultural forces which are at once invisible and yet are
apparent in the very structures we see all around us.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Moving from Plan to fully
developed argument

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Specific textual examples to support the
points made

The use of critical opinions out of which

the writer makes clear their OWN
position

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 Here are 3 versions of the same extract
from the final essay – using key marking
criteria. Can you decide which would
receive the best grade and why?

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 From planning

P4 The settings arguably reflect the biographical and cultural

influences of the novels. Both Gilead and the world of the
Hailsham students would be familiar to their respective target
audiences although at the same time they are disconcertingly
altered – they become palimpsests and thus serve to reinforce
dystopic literature’s purpose to warn and force us to reflect on
our own cultural experience.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 V.1

Never let me go is set in Britain of now but its different whereas the
handmaids’ tail isn’t quite as familiar because its set in the future but its still
in Massachussets which is where Atwood was from when she wrote the book.
Ishiguro was originally from Japan but he moved to England when he was just
5 witch maybe helps him to see things in a different way. Both books settings
are likely to be known by their readers and so they can connect to what is
happening in the stories unlike in sci fi where its harder to to see the point
that the writer is trying to make. Both authors are basically saying that these
dystopic things could happen if you are not careful. In this way they are like
palimpsests because you can see the world you live in but at the same time its
not the world you live in and so it throws you off and makes you unsure. Like
Wittgenstein says – “the aspect of things that are most important for us are
hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.”

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 V.2

Both authors use settings which contain biographical details and would be
familiar to their audience. Atwood says that ‘‘It’s set, not in a Britain-yet-to-
come, but in a Britain-off-to-the-side.’’, when talking about ‘Never Let Me
Go’. The horrors of the book are horrible because its just like Britain now.
And Atwood puts Gilead in Massachusetts, which is also important and places
like the wall and the library are not what they would be for readers who lived
there when the book was written and so it’s thought provoking. The writers
use familiar settings because they remind the readers that this could happen
to them and that’s typical of dystopic literature which is designed to warn us
of what might happen if we don’t watch out.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 V.3

It is significant that both authors have elected to present their novels in settings which
are at once both biographically pertinent and at the same time likely to reflect the
every day landscape of their respective target audience. Indeed Atwood observes of
Ishiguro’s text that ‘‘It’s set, not in a Britain-yet-to-come, but in a Britain-off-to-the-
side.’’, acknowledging that much of its resonance comes from its familiarity as a
contemporary landscape. The horrors of the cloning project are made all the more
terrifying because the culture is otherwise closely aligned to Britain at the turn of the
new millennium. Kathy and her friends visit a Woolworths in Cromer, stand outside a
typical office block in search of Ruth’s ‘possible’ and search for the lost tape in an all
too familiar charity shop – the world of the clones is haunting because it is our world.
Likewise, Atwood roots the dystopic regime of Gilead in the heart of Harvard
Massachusetts, her own university home town, and the series of palimpsest locations
including the terrifying ‘wall’ and the library, once symbols of education and liberalism,
become distorted into tools of propaganda and control. It is essential that dystopic
literature should not be dismissed as implausible Science Fiction and so both authors
force the reader to be at once both oriented and disoriented within the worlds
presented, yielding an uncomfortable tension that is arguably mimetic.

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 May the force be with you
Research
Planning
Writing & Rewriting

onsdag den 4 maj 2011

 http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
resource/728/02/

onsdag den 4 maj 2011