Short Story Analysis Reflection

            For my short story analysis paper I wrote on “The Effect Coming of Age Has on a Parent-Child Relationship”. I decided to analyze “Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?” and how Connie and her parents have a dynamic relationship as Connie begins to age and matures as she develops into an adult. I am satisfied with my intro because I believe I gave a good background for the story and introduced the theme I wished to convey in my paper, and finally in the end connecting it together with my well thought out thesis. Based on the comments I received I believe that I also developed the first body paragraph very well. The topic of this paragraph was how Connie’s parents under appreciate her and it makes her feel a need to separate herself from her family. The topic sentence was related to the thesis and there was strong support to support the claim I made. The only problems that I ran into in this paragraph were minor grammatical errors. Although I had a strong introduction and first body paragraph, my second body paragraph veered off topic a little bit. One of the problems I had in this paragraph was that I jumped ahead in the story quite a bit because I found better textual support towards the end. The paragraph moved a bit away from the thesis; it lacked the component of her family relationship and focused primarily on her developing characteristics of independence. The text support was good but the analysis failed to completely defend the point I was trying to make. Even the conclusion only states how she ignores her mother but does not mention the other side of the relationship of give specific details to how the relationship changed at all. In the third paragraph I discussed how Connie’s realization that she is not ready to be independent has caused her to want the comfort of her parents and dependency on them once again. The topic of this paragraph is connected to my thesis but I did not provide context to the story as to when this was occurring. The text support and analysis were strong and descriptive however I began to make much more grammatical mistakes such as using passive voice, to be verbs, and second person. In my conclusion I restated the thesis and how this paper supported the thesis. I also went in depth on what the meaning of the story was as a whole based on the text I analyzed. Over all the paper was relatively on track with the thesis and the topic sentences aside from a few points. The paper was organized well proceeding in chronological order of events and how these events developed the SO WHAT that Oates was trying to convey. The support consisted of important passages and quotes and the analysis was long and in depth. The biggest problem through out the paper was mechanics and grammar issues, but overall the paper was well written and received an appropriate grade.