Christopher Columbus First Voyage

1. Essay should be a research critical analysis of a short story, poem, or unit reading from the required reading for American Literature 1. If you choose a shorter piece, like a poem, essay, or speech, you should choose two and compare and contrast the pieces. Essay must successfully address each of the Student Learning Outcomes (See #16) and include the CORE questions (See#17). For explanation of what is involved in a Critical Analysis, see the Rules for Literary Analysis, 10 Steps to a Research Essay, and the example essay links in Research Unit.

2. Essay should be typed in MLA style. Points will be deducted for MLA mistakes, so be sure to use the MLA handbook, your textbooks, or the Purdue Owl site (Helpful Links) for up-to-date MLA guidelines.

3. Essay should have an MLA header, not a cover page, and pages should be numbered in the top right corner, along with your last name.

4. Essay should be 5-7 pages in length. 12 pt. Times New Roman: Do not go over or under your page limit. The works cited page should be numbered, but does not count in the page requirement. The end of essay questions should not be counted in page length.

5. Essay should use and cite at least four secondary sources. Sources must be credible and college level. At least two sources must be from data-bases. See the “Using Navarro Databases” handout in Course Documents. The other two can be from the internet, but still must be credible. NO Wikipedia or Helpme.com type sources allowed.

6. Essay should use and cite at least one primary source. The primary source is the piece of literature you are analyzing. If you are comparing two pieces of literature, they are both considered primary.

7. Essay may be a theme analysis, character analysis, poetry explication or literary theory application. The essay must answer/address most, if not all, of the requirments included in the American Literature SLOs (#16) The essay should NOT be a simple summary or book
9. Borrowed materials should be quoted, paraphrased or summarized and properly documented using end-of-line documentation, linked to a works-cited-page. The end-of-line documentation, usually the author’s last name and page number, should directly correlate with the author position on the works cited page. (See Example Essay or Purdue Owl site for examples.)

10. Read and follow carefully, the “Rules for Literary Analysis” and “10 Steps to a Research Paper” documents. You are responsible for every word in them.

11. Primary source should be quoted and paraphrased in each body paragraph. It is, after all, the subject of your essay.

Literary Research Essay Grading Rubric with CORE
25 points- Essay Structure and MLA Style:
o Essay must include effective title, lead-in, thesis, body and conclusion.
o Essay must be typed in MLA style with 1 inch margins, indented paragraphs and MLA header. Essay must be double spaced with proper essay spacing.
o Essay must include the assigned number of sources, documented properly with plenty of MLA style end-of-line documentations and include a MLA style works cited page.
o Essay must not go over or under the word limit.
25 points- Content/ SLO’s:
o Essay must follow assigned mode and topic, must tackle the subject matter in a mature depth,and must display critical thinking and reasoning.
o Essay must include critical analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of a variety of sources. Essay must include ethical (always give credit) and logical uses of evidence.
o Essay must follow the writing prompt and be written in a style appropriate to audience and purpose. (College level analysis)
o Essay must not contain false information or logical fallacies.
o Essay must display effective development, interpretation, and expression of ideas. Ideas must be developed with appropriate support and attribution. (in-text citations and works cited page)
o Essay must successfully address the Student Learning Outcomes as listed in the course syllabus.
25 points- Punctuation and Usage/ College level Style and Word Choice:
o Essay must be written in Edited American English, including, but not limited to, proper use of commas, semi-colons, colons, apostrophes, and periods.
o Essay must not contain spelling errors, capitalization, or texting style mistakes.
o Essay must not contain any fused run-ons, comma splice run-ons, or sentence fragments.
o Essay must display proper use of pronouns and verbs.
o Essays must exhibit a mature style in word choice and sentence structure/sentence variety.
o Essays must not contain contractions or second person point of view (you).
o Essay must contain strong effective word choice, avoiding vague word choice such as “thing” or “stuff” and colloquial words like “kid” and “guy”.
o Essay must not contain slang or non-standard word choices.
o Essay must maintain proper use of literary present tense.

25 Points- Essay Steps and Collaborative Writing: (Continued on next page)
o Essay must include steps and collaboration activities. Students must participate in the teamwork portion of the assignment. Participation in “Writing Partners” is required.
o Directly after the works cited page, writers must answer thoroughly with complete sentences. (no fragments allowed)
Teamwork:
1. State your assigned partner’s full name. What was your role in your group? How did you work together to accomplish your goal? Did your partner contribute to the group in a helpful way? If your partner did not respond to you, what steps did you take to initiate contact? If your assigned

o The entire Essay, final draft, including works cited page and CORE questions must be submitted, as directed, by the required deadline. Essays should be submitted electronically to the plagiarism detection software. Essays should not be emailed or submitted in hardcopy.

** PLAGIARISM WARNING!!!!!!
Any information that is not common knowledge must be documented with end-of-line documentation/citation AND a works cited page. Even if you put the information in your own words, or know it by heart, if the information originated from someone else, it MUST be documented. Essays containing any amount of plagiarism will be assigned zeros.
Provided documents and helpful links provide instruction and examples of MLA style documentation and citation.

I had started writing this paper – this is my original thesis and start of an outline…
Thesis: Unimaginable treasures await those who are willing to pursue the unknown.

1. Columbus 1st Journey.

a. Columbus and his crew departed from southern Spain with 3 ship on the journey.

b. After the voyage took longer than four weeks his crew began to get reckless and ask if they could go back to Spain.

c. Finally Columbus started to head back towards Spain once they finished searching the cuban lands.

2.People Columbus discovered on his first journey.

a. Some of the first people Columbus met on this journey was Native Americans on the island of San Salvador.

b. Columbus also met a captain of a boat named Pinzon.

c. Finally he met a governor of a country in Santa Maria.

3. The plans and destinations he discovered on his journey.

a. Columbus was stopped by a group of islands called the Canary Islands.

b. The plan was that the journey would only take 4 weeks; but that was over before they even left the Canary Islands.

c. Columbus then arrives in San Salvador and has an interaction with people.