Biographical Sketch Paper Assignment

English 2202

Biographical Sketch paper assignment

Spring 1999

Your assignment is to write a two to three page biographical sketch of an author included among the selections from our syllabus. The sketch should be typed, double-spaced, and free of errors. While you do not need to include a title page, you should include a Works Cited page as you will need to borrow information to complete this sketch.

Follow these guidelines:

1.  Find information about the author from a variety of sources. These sources should include (but are not limited to) the links I have provided on the English 2202 website (http://www.ar.mn.cc.us/beste/English2202), other reliable websites, and periodical information obtained via WebPals.

2.  Your sketch should be a critical assessment of the author. Evaluate the author’s biases and qualifications. What is trustworthy or untrustworthy about the author? Did he/she depend heavily on the readings/advice/mentoring of someone else and is that important in our understanding of this person?

3.  Describe the author’s formative years: family background, education, turning points.

4.  Can you capture the times in which your author lived? In other words, in what context was this author writing? Was it pre-Nazi Germany or Civil War America or the Victorian Age in England? How did that infect the writing and how does it affect our reading of the author’s works?

5.  In short, can you share with your readers a sense of who this author is in a way that is unique, different, or unusual? Your challenge is to write a short paper that sheds new light on your subject from your research that might help us see this author (and his/her writings) in a new way.

For example, did you know William Faulkner couldn’t hold down a steady job and was even fired from his post office job because when he worked the stamp window, he would read novels and tell customers to buzz off when they wanted to buy stamps? He also fancied himself an aristocrat and dressed as such, but around town he was known as “Count No-count” by his feed store cronies. What does this say about Faulkner’s fiction? Maybe nothing, but maybe this history of being unable to follow through in work and life suggests why his writing seems so loosely constructed: he couldn’t dependably follow a narrative thread from beginning to end without rambling or getting sidetracked altogether. (Yet, maybe it’s this weakness that is Faulkner’s greatest strength.)

The biographical sketch paper assignment is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 16th. Please submit your assignment on time: final paper grades will be deducted five points for each week day the paper is late.