Ashley P.

Marcum
English 111-FJT 44

Due Dates: Outline:

Rough Draft:
Final Draft:

3/4/2016
3/14/2016
3/18/2016

Inquiry 2: Literary Analysis (Single-Source Essay)

Task: For this assignment, you will be writing a literary analysis of A Walk in the Woods,
the All College Read book by Bill Bryson.
Audience: Your instructor and fellow students.
Format: Your essay should be four to five pages long following MLA style (double
spaced, size 12 font, 1 inch margins etc.). Essays that are less than four pages long will
be considered incomplete.
Purpose: Your primary goal with this assignment is to explain your interpretation of
what the main impact the book is intended to have on the reader. Is the book simply a
funny travel story? Is the main intent of the book to lambast Americas national park
system, rampant consumerism, seeming apathy for nature, etc? Rather than take on the
book as a whole, a textual analysis requires you to break down a text into parts that give
you a lens for interpretation. The following are your options for approaches or topics for
analysis with this essay:
Throughout the text, Bryson says in several different ways that what the AT or
the woods teaches you is . . . What do you think that Bryson wants his
experience in the woods to teach the reader? Do you think he learned a singular
lesson or multiple lessons in the woods? Explain.
Do you find Bryson and Katz likeable? If so, why? If not, why not? Do you like
them both equally? Does the author want you to like them both equally? As a
narrator, does Bryson endear you to him? If so, how? If not, how? What role
does the likeability of the two main characters play in how you receive the
authors intended point with the text?
Explain how stereotypes in the book impact what the book is intended to do for
the reader. Do you find these uses of stereotyping super offensive, simply funny,
or something else? Explain what stereotypes you see in the book and how these
stereotypes impact Brysons topic, intention, bias, audience, evidence, and
reasoning.
The book explores the concepts of journey, wilderness, friendship,
romanticism/transcendentalism, environmentalism, etc. Choose one of these
concepts to focus your discussion and interpretation of the novel.
All of your research will come from the book itself as it will be your only source for
material. I expect to see plenty of quotes, statements, and passages from the book that
will illustrate your points best. Think about WHAT the text is telling you the reader, and
HOW it is telling you. What effect does it have on you? These questions are key to this
assignment.
You will need to make a clear claim or thesis statement that lays out what you think
Bryson intended to accomplish with the book and whether or not he was effective with
readers. As you use quotes and paraphrases from the book, you will need to properly cite
this source material and include a works cited page.