The Giver Essay Assignment

1. EDUC/ELIT 58
The Giver
Paper guidelines
In this 3-4 page paper you will be summarizing and analyzing the young adult
fantasy novel, The Giver. You will need to use the methods of analysis that we have
gone over in class. Please use all notes we you have taken in class. If you use outside
sources, you must cite them according to MLA guidelines. There is a video for the
use of MLA citation on the website or you may use any other reputable source.
Paper guidelines:
In your introduction, please summarize the novel in your own words. The summary
should be no more than 2/3 of a typed page. You have to cite the author and title
correctly. Don't assume that I have read the novel or you might leave out important
information that I might need, but don't include a lot of unnecessary details.
In your thesis, write about the methods of analysis you will be using to show if The
Giver is a good example of a high fantasy or not, in your estimation. Do you think the
novel is effective in its representation of the difficulty a young hero faces and in its
ability to show a dystopia that contains elements of the real world?
The body of your essay will be analyzing some of the different elements of effective
fantasy, high and low fantasy and dystopia and the hero's journey. You do not have
to cover all of these, only enough to write an analysis that is thorough. You
may choose to only write about the elements of good, high, and low fantasy
and the hero's journey, for example.
In each of your body paragraphs, I will expect a topic sentence that identifies which
element you are analyzing, quotes and examples from The Giver, and an
explanation of how you interpret each of the quotes or parts of the story. The
analysis is a very important part of each paragraph.
Your conclusion should not simply summarize what you have written in the paper.
You might write about your experience of reading The Giver, or you might want to
write about if you would recommend this novel to adolescents and young adults or
not. You may want to read a review and comment on it. (There are two examples on
the website in the links on the homepage.) You may want to write about how The
Giver is reminiscent of some of the issues in our current world. Another possibility is
your comparison of The Giver to other dystopic young adult novels.