Novel Themes
You have just finished reading Conrad Richter’s historical novel The Light in the Forest. The character of True Son finds himself caught between two cultures, and he struggles to discover his own cultural identity; at the same time, he is moving from childhood to adulthood.
For your writing assignment, use the Text Editor to write a well-organized and well-supported essay in which you identify the themes in the novel, explain how they are developed throughout the text, and discuss their overall significance or meanings. Be sure to use examples and quotes from the novel to support your assertions. Review your journal entries, the novel itself, and the information in this Unit to help you. Also, think about the questions below to help you get started:
How are these themes developed throughout the text? What do the characters experience and say that help communicate those messages to readers?
How does Richter use the characters themselves to develop these themes (True Son, Del Hardy, Uncle Wilse, Gordie, etc.)?
What is True Son’s conflict at the beginning of the novel? How does he change, and is the conflict resolved by the end of the novel?
Are there any other important themes in the novel? How are they developed throughout?
A successful essay will include:
An introduction that identifies the main themes in the novel.
Information and specific details about the themes and evidence from the text to prove that those themes are present in the novel.
An explanation of how those themes are developed, with evidence from the text to support your assertions.
Quotations and examples from the text.
Interesting use of language (think about using some of the characteristics of drama, figurative language, and imagery to help you).
A conclusion that draws everything together and makes some assertions about the overall meaning of the themes and the novel itself.
Follow the steps of the Writing Process outlined below to help you organize and write your essay. Also, be sure to review the grading rubric before you begin writing so you know what will be expected for a superior essay.
STEP 1: What is the purpose of your essay?
STEP 2: Who is your audience? What information needs to be included? What does not?
STEP 3: Brainstorm some possible ideas for your essay. What are the main themes? How do you know? What evidence from the text supports this?
STEP 4: Write an outline of your essay. For example, the first paragraph will be your introduction. What information will appear in your second paragraph? In your third? And so on. This will help you organize your essay before you begin writing and keep you from discussing things that are not relevant to the main idea of your essay.
STEP 5: Write a draft of your essay. This is just your first draft so it does not need to be perfect; you will revise and edit it later.
STEP 6: Read over your draft and revise it; at this time you are just looking at the “big picture”; you are not correcting spelling, grammar, and mechanics errors. Ask yourself the following questions: Does the essay flow smoothly? Is the main idea clear? Does anything need to be moved around to make more sense? Do any of the points need more evidence or support? Make any necessary revisions.
STEP 7: Now go through your draft and make corrections in grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Be sure all of your sentences are complete, everything is spelled correctly, your punctuation is correct, etc. Make any necessary edits.
STEP 8: Now that you have revised and edited your first draft, you need to prepare a final, polished version of your essay to turn in to your Contact Teacher. Be sure to include all of the changes you identified in the previous steps.
