This week, we’ve been focusing on race in Flannery O’Connor’s stories. We’ve read “The Artificial Nigger,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “Judgement Day,” and “The Geranium” as well as a selection of O’Connor’s letters and some essays on race in O’Connor’s fiction. For your second response paper, your task is to analyze some aspect of a story or stories we’ve read this week. Your response paper must have a thesis — that is, a debatable claim that demands textual support. Your thesis should not be a statement of the obvious (“There are many mothers in Flannery O’Connor’s fiction”). And you must use direct quotes to support your thesis. Other than that, there are no restrictions on what you can write about. You can write about race, but you don’t need to. You can focus on a single story or compare two or more stories. You can analyze theme, structure, characters, descriptions, symbolism, or any other element of the stories you can make a debatable claim about. You can bring in arguments or quotes from the letters or literary criticism, or not. New specification for this essay: If you want to use one of the arguments of the literary critics (Wen, Crawford, Wood, or Walker) in your essay, you cannot simply take it and use it as your thesis. You can either argue against it (ex: Wood has argued that O’Connor is no racist. However…) or extend it (ex: Wen doesn’t go far enough when he says O’Connor has a terror of neutrality. In fact…) Assessment Criteria In a strong response paper… Arguments Your thesis is clearly stated and worthy of exploration, not too obvious. Your paper offers insights into the story beyond what a casual reader would glean. Evidence Your thesis is fully supported with sound, well-chosen evidence (primarily direct quotes). You thoroughly analyze your evidence and connect it to your thesis. Structure and Conventions Your paper is clearly structured to guide your reader through your interpretation of the story. Quotations are smoothly integrated into the essay (not standing alone as their own sentences) and include page numbers.