Your essay on the views of the story "The Revolt of Mother" is to be from 500-700 words long, following the format for the MLA style. Its purpose is to convey to the reader the views expressed by the students in the class without making having your opinions about the material interfere with a clear description and analysis of those views. The draft is due Monday, June 25; the final is due Tuesday, June 26.  

This is the most complex essay you've written so far.  You'll be juggling from a number of points of view or opinions, trying to make sense of the trend in them.   

Remember that the key to successfully completing the paper is to focus the paper on some observation you have made of the student comments on the story.  You're seeking to explain to the reader something about what was said about the story.  Knowing the story, you can comment on that as necessary to explain the discussion and comments from other students, but explaining something about their views--not the story itself--is key.  

Here is an example essay.  It's to a slightly different assignment, but the basic elements are the same.  

The essay should follow these specific guidelines.  

1. It should follow the MLA format where possible—header, margins, title, and other. 
2. It should have a beginning that gets the reader’s interest and opens the subject covered in the essays. You may want to consider using a current issue to open the paper and set up the discussion of the views.
3. It should mention the authors or student names (and use only the last name after the first use) and titles of the sources.
4. It should describe the basic source of the information.
5. It should tell the story "The Revolt of Mother" briefly.
6. It should tell clearly what the main point of your essays is (to give an idea of the range of views).
7. It should make the general point about the views clear briefly before going into details. This may be done in the thesis.
8. It should describe and illustrate the main points of the arguments.
9. It should describe the minor points of the arguments where possible.
10. It should connect any points or issues that appear in each argument.
11. Paragraphs will begin with topic sentences that identify a general idea that is then supported with information in the paragraphs.
12. It should be free of spelling, grammatical, and mechanical errors.
13. It should avoid allowing the writer’s bias to interfere with the description of the views on the subject.
14. It should have a sense of an ending.
15. It should use the present tense when referring to what the author writes.
16. It should have quotation marks around any words or phrases or sentences from any source.
17. It should make clear what ideas come from which writers--clear attributions.
18. It should make use of a variety of student comments. 
19. It should refer to passages in the story where necessary.
20. It should use transitional words and phrases to clarify for the reader how the ideas you present are tied together.

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