Literary Analysis:

The Little Prince

For your first paper (worth 10% of your class grade), you are being asked to write a total of
2,000 words (that’s about six pages of 13 point font, double spaced text). Your assignment
will have a title page (format for the title page can be found below). Do not be afraid to go
over the minimum -- often, for the sake of clarity and in making, supporting and explaining
our best points, we need more space. The assignment is due on Tuesday, April 19th. There is
a rough draft deadline set for April 10th where you must produce a hard copy of at least 4
pages. You must email me your final draft and deliver to class your hard copies.

This essay will be an analysis of either the book or movie version of The Little Prince.
Each and every paragraph in the body of your essay must have at least one direct quote from
the book or movie, and this quote must be put in quotation marks and cited with an in-text
citation (that is, after your quote, put the page number of the book or the time stamp of the
movie like this: (35) or (45 min).

As is the case with all college level essays, you will have a thesis statement in the
introduction. Usually it is the last sentence of your introduction, with all the previous
sentences being used to make your readers interested by arguing that the information in the
essay is useful or relevant them. You will be arguing that Exupery (the author of the book) or
Stanley Donen (the director of the movie) was able to convey something valuable,
meaningful, beautiful, life affirming, etc. to an audience using whatever three artistic
techniques you feel are best (for the book: tone, imagery, point of view, allegory, symbol,
dialogue, and so on, or, for the movie: things like color, sound, camera angles, special
effects, editing, acting, dialogue, etc.) Your thesis statement needs to list all three of the
techniques (major topics) you will examine in the order that they are presented.

Remember, a thesis statement is an assertion about what the author is able to do for the
reader AND how he is able to do that. I can’t say it any clearer than that, but here is a
sample thesis statement about a fable to use as a model:

In the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare,” Aesop is able to teach children everywhere the
value of patience and self confidence through allegory, the personalities of the two main
characters and a dramatic ending.”

If you were writing the paper for this thesis statement, you would have three paragraphs in
the first section which show three separate uses of allegory and relate each one of those
specific uses back to the the thesis statement assertion (which, in this case, is that the stories
help children to learn about patience and self-confidence). Section two would have three
paragraphs showing three specific uses of personality traits in the turtle and the rabbit, and
show how those teach children about patience and self-confidence. Lastly, your third section
would have three paragraphs that show various aspects of the the drama of the ending and
how each of those teaches about patience and self-confidence. This was all explained in
class and practiced with your outline, but if you still have confusions about any of this,
please find help from me or somebody soon.

For your essay, each paragraph will begin with a topic sentence that focuses on one aspect of
analysis (tone, symbol, allegory, exposition, setting, central character, foil, and/or some
aspect of the story that you find to be important.) Each paragraph will focus on one (and

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 only one) aspect of analysis, and then thoroughly investigate and explore how that aspect
works to develop meaning for the story as a whole. A topic sentence for your paragraph
might look something like this: “Exupery uses symbolism with great skill to show how
selfishness works inside of us all the time.”

Your essay needs to follow the structure of the essay in the slideshow we watched in class,
and your paragraphs must follow the PEE paragraph structure (also seen in a class slideshow).
If you do not know how to write an essay paper or a paragraph, you are responsible to ask for
that help or find it anywhere you can. There are lots of articles and videos on line to help
you to write an essay and a PEE paragraph. I recommend that you watch some if you have
any doubts, and contact me with specific questions.

In order to have your final draft graded, you will have to turn it in with a Rough Draft which
has at least 15 marks in which you have identified grammar mistakes and/or sentences that
need to be improved. Your Final Draft will have these changes made.

You will have two weeks to write this paper, but you must bring your rough draft to me for
me to sign in one week or else lose half the points for your Rough Draft. Each day after the
deadline for the Rough Draft will lose 10 points, so that if you have not brought to me your
Rough Draft to check by the 5th day, you will get no points for your Rough Draft.
Nevertheless, I will not grade your Final Draft without a Rough Draft with 15 marks on it, so
since you have to do it anyway, might as well, turn it in before the final deadline to get points
for it.

Please keep in mind, that as you write about a story (in book or movie), use the present tense, as if all
the action is happening right now (which it is, if you were to pick up the book and start reading). EX:
“This can be seen when the little prince gets his drawing from the pilot.”

Literary Analysis Rubric: (5 points will be given “Free”)

Graded Element Point Value Description

Title Page Format 5 see the model on the last page

Essay Format 10 See the list on the last page

Has a clearly stated and logical thesis

statement. All sentences leading up to it are
Introduction 15 giving background about the book (not much),
the story and the relevance of the story to your
reader

All the essay body paragraphs will have PEE

structure: a topic sentence that has an
PEE Paragraphs 30 argument or assertion (Point), support from the
text (Evidence) and your explanation of how the
evidence proves your point (Explanation).

Just a small percentage of points which is

supposed to serve as incentive for students to
Grammar 5 carefully revise their work and follow the dictates
of grammar. Take pride in your work!

Clarity of Communication and The more clear you communicate, the better
20 you do.
Logic
You are setting out to prove that your assertion
Effectiveness of your Thesis 10
2 or argument (thesis statement) is true.

Conclusion 5 “Tell ‘em what you told ‘em”

For your paper to be effective, you must care. That is, if you are unsure how to do anything,
it is up to you do find that out or figure that out. An effective paper must also communicate
with its audience: be sensitive you your readers’ needs by being clear and reminding your
reader why these things are important to your reader. Your reader is a human being, and
humans beings need to learn about things that will help them and they need to learn about
these things in a gentle, comfortable way. You are writing, not primarily for a grade but to
explain what is great about the book or movie that can help us to become more human,
more present, more loving, more caring, more aware, more wise, etc.

In order for you to be clear in your writing, each of your sentences must make sense and
connect logically to the sentences before and after. A good paragraph will use transition and
order signals (ie. “The first technique that teaches the reader…” “The next technique to look
at that helps the reader to understand about our root problem….” “The final technique of the
book that moves the reader into recognizing the value of being a child is….”) Since you have
a week just to revise (after you have shown me your rough draft), your revisions are expected
to be thorough. You can tell if your sentences or logic or structure has problems, so you can
fix those problems or seek help in fixing them. I can answer many questions in a matter of
minutes. You just have to reach out for that help.

Four ways to revise: 1) make hardcopies and mark them, 2) read your work aloud (to
yourself or to friends) to listen for places that make no sense or lack logic, 3) see somebody
to edit your paper, or 4) bring your paper to the Writing Center where we can identify major
and minor problems together.

Final Message:
If trying your best is important to you, and if you believe in what
you are writing about and believe that it is important to say these
things and to hone the skills that allow you to say important
things, you will do fine.

Try to make this assignment fun for yourself and strive to say
things that are important for you to say.

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 Format Checklist:
1) Double space (to allow me to make corrections between lines)

2) Two spaces after periods, question marks, colons, semi-colons, and exclamation
points. (Easy to forget, but on revision, make a point to go through and insert one
more space between every sentence to save yourself a point.

3) page numbers on the bottom of the page (in a footer) and centered. Just the number.

4) 1 inch (or 2 cm) margins on all sides (about the size of your index finger)

5) page numbers, centered, with no words, placed near the bottom

6) no fancy fonts: nothing too thick, too thin, too curly or too anything (if in doubt, ask me)

7) 13 point fonts: don’t make me strain to read

8) do not use contractions (isn’t, aren’t, won’t, don’t, can’t, etc.) If you use these by habit,
go through on your revision and change them all to the longer forms.

9) do not use the word “very”: it is an empty modifier. Use better modifiers or better
words.

10) Indent your paragraphs 5 spaces. Do not use extra spaces between paragraphs.

11) Book titles are underlined. Each word is capitalized (except for the small words)

12) After each quote, put the page number in parentheses.

13) punctuation at the end of the quote is placed after the parentheses.

14) do not misquote. All spelling, words, punctuation and special symbols in the quote
must be faithfully reproduced.

15) If your quote is more than two lines in length, separate that quote from the body of your
paragraph by (1) starting it on a new line, (2) single spacing it the quote (and then
returning to double spacing after the quote, (3) double indent on both sides (so that the
block is “squeezed” and centered between your normal margined and double-spaced
text (4) take the quotation marks away.

Title page:
to the right is a model for the Title Page format. Leave the bottom
half of your paper empty and include only the kinds of information
shown. Look at capital letters, bold, underlines, size of text in
different places and try to make as exact a copy as you can.

Think of a creative title for your paper and use that in the place
where my creative title is.
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