High School Literary Criticism Papers

Valdosta State University Instructor Diane Howard, VSU Archivist Deborah Davis, and Janice Daugharty collaborated with high school English teachers at Valdosta High School, Lowndes High School, Echols County High School, and Clinch County High School to instruct high school students for three days about engaging in the writing process, conducting  literary and historical research on primary sources, regional identity themes, Southern authors, the writer's role as an observer, and writing literary criticism.

 

Students were prepared for the project activities by reading a Janice Daugharty's short story "Shorn Glory" and by reviewing a CD handout created by the project developers containing primary and secondary sources and literary criticism related to Daugharty's short story. 

 

On day one of this project activity, Deborah Davis presented a tabletop exhibit and a multi-media show on Daugharty, and discussed the VSU archive collection of Janice Daugharty, and her writings including various drafts of her works. She also demonstrated how the archive collection can be used as a primary resource in studying a piece of literature.

On day two Diane Howard, Daugharty, Davis, and students, discussed Daugharty's short stories, the writing process, and sense of place as it related the stories.      

On day three Diane Howard taught students about how to use historical and literary research; and instructed students about how to incorporate what they learned about sense of place into their critical essays.

As part of this project activity, approximately 100 high school juniors and seniors submitted literary criticism papers for evaluation and nine were chosen for this journal. The nine students whose essays were chosen presented their papers at the Janice Daugharty Festival, a regional writing conference, held on April 29, 2004. The conference was an additional event emerging from the project.

Please click on the literary criticism paper titles below to view the complete paper. 
 

Southern Religion by Rebekah Staten

A Time to Change by Jenna Corbett

Southern Presence in Shorn Glory by Chelsea Pyle

A Literary Analysis of Shorn Glory by Patrick Lasseter

Symbols and Colors by Nicolas Sinkule

Mama Always Said Not to Get Haircuts from Drunk Rednecks by Patrick Poole
 

Redemption in Shorn Glory by Mark Purser

Discovering Self -Shearing Mothers Religion by DeShaun Harris