Sunday, November 25, 2012

How do I structure a paragraph reflecting shifting values & contextual focus (while definining King Lear's C. F. simultaneously?King Lear...

Your essay must be many paragraphs, so your question is a bit incorrect and may be blocking you from thinking logically about how to approach your assignment.  For a complex writing assignment, it's often helpful to begin with a bulleted list.  I often use PowerPoint to begin with because it automatically bullets the information, is easy to move items around, and lets me create subbullets or change a subbullet to a main bullet, etc.  When the outline is done, you are organized and the hardest part of your essay is done.  

One suggestion is to identify all the character's values in King Lear in one bulleted list.  You don't say in your question to us whether you are selecting one character or several but based on your punctuation I am assuming it is just one character.  Copy that list to a new page, identify which values shift, and review for yourself how many shifting values you'll need to discuss in your essay.  This up front research is very important because you'll want to zero in on the major shifting values for discussion in your essay, but also reference the other values, both those that shift and those that don't, so your instructor knows that you know what they are.  Also, it will help you avoid putting too much emphasis in your essay on only one or two items, or on the wrong items, when you should be discussing more items or something else.

Once you identify where your major emphasis should be, you should have a clearer idea of how many major shifting values you'll need to discuss.  This will help you figure out how long your essay will be, what your opening paragraphs will be, and whether it will take one, two, or even more paragraphs to discuss each of the major shifting values.   

Now you can begin writing.  Use your opening paragraph to identify your character and your premise; that is, the values you identified and that certain ones seem to shift throughout the play.  You'll use the remaining paragraphs to discuss each of the major value shifts you found, with your closing paragraph to summarize.  

Keep in mind that it is sometimes helpful to use other characters as part of the "evidence" in your argument.  For example, if you identify a particular value as shifting, is there another character with that same value that does not shift, and is there a point where the two characters diverge because of the firstt one's shift?

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