For this assignment, students will write an evaluative essay comparing two media. You’ll use the short story “The bear came over the mountain” (Munro, 2013) and the film Away from Her (Egoyan et al., 2006). You will begin working on this assignment (reading, viewing, drafting) in Unit four, but submit the initial draft of the paper in Unit Five.
You will evaluate two main components:
Does the film accurately depict the short story?
Do the film and the short story accurately portray Alzheimer’s?
Provide evidence from both the film and the story.
For this essay, the short story is the source material. You are going to evaluate how well the film stands up to the short story. First, you must establish the criteria. What makes the short story successful? You want to think about this very carefully as you read and make notes. Notice elements of plot, structure, character, and point of view. You’ll write about these in the first section of your paper.
This essay should:
have specific criteria, using the short story as source material
use that criterion to make judgments about the film
support the judgment with evidence from the text and film
be 1000 words long
have an explicit thesis statement, with the main idea (the topic of the paper) and a controlling idea (what you, as the author, is saying about the topic)
In this case, we’re making a judgment, and that should be included in the thesis. Remember — this judgment is not about the film or text is good or bad. It’s about whether or not the film lives up to the criteria established in the short story.
include an integrated, direct quote from the text/film to support the thesis in each of the body paragraphs
be written using APA formatting
use APA guidelines for citation, both in-text and on a References page
avoid using 1st- or 2nd-person references (focus on objective 3rd-person references instead)
be submitted as a MS Word .docx file
References and Citations:
Citation: (Munro, 2013).
Add paragraph numbers with direct quotes (Munro, 2013, para. 4).
Reference:
Munro, A. (2013, Oct 21). The bear came over the mountain. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/21/the-bear-came-over-the-mountain-2
All citations should be: (Egoyan et al., 2006).
Add timestamp number with direct quotes.
Reference:
Egoyan, A. Hirst, V., Iron, D. Mankoff, D. Urdl, S. Weiss, J. (Producers), & Polley, S. (Director). (2006). Away from her. [Motion picture]. Canada: Foundry Film.
