Book Review Rubric Red River   This assignment is divided into five sections, all of which must be combined to create one cohesive essay

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Book Review Rubric Red River

 

This assignment is divided into five sections, all of which must be combined to create one cohesive essay.  I will expect standardized essay formatting and a smooth, even narrative flow from one section to another and from beginning to end.

 

You will begin with a satisfactory introductory paragraph that includes a solid thesis statement detailing the purpose for your writing of this essay and perhaps some enticing lead in information to draw the reader into your narrative.  This should be concise but provocative.  I do not want to see your paper begin with “This is about Red River and I will talk about the author, her writing, some themes and a conclusion.”  This is not a thesis statement; it is a grocery list and I do not want to see that anywhere in this piece. 

 

For those of you unfamiliar with essay conventions and the art of writing a thesis statement, I have provided a link to help you.  I would also suggest going to the writing center on campus as well.  They can help you with the formatting and thesis work but you must write the paper first.  They will not help you until you have a solid first draft in place.

 

Section 1

 

Section 1 concerns the author, his or her credentials as pertains to the subject matter of the book in question.  If your author has a degree in oil painting and this book is about a historic event having nothing to do with oil painting, his or her degree is worthless here.  Remember, this is about the authenticity of your author and their academic credentials must have some connection to the historic event covered by their book. 

 

You will want some information about the author’s personal history, the influences that perhaps led them to write this book and the author’s intent with the novel.  This can be a parent, some other relative, a friend or perhaps an influencing teacher or mentor.

 

You also want to consider the author’s intent in writing the book in question.  Every writer makes choices when writing a document and one of them is whether to stick to the historic chronology or to deviate from it in favor of some emotional rendering.  This is a choice and does not affect the worth of the writer but you must know what the author had in mind when writing the book.  This will directly influence what you say about the historic accuracy of the book.  Look for interviews with the author.  This is where they will discuss their intent in writing the piece you are reviewing. 

 

To support your claims of historic accuracy or the lack of that, you will also want several qualified critiques of the book and by that I want you to ignore Goodreads completely.  These contributors are people who might like the author or the book but have little or no knowledge of the subject matter.  While they might illuminate the popularity of the author, it does not reveal anything of their credentials or historic effectiveness.  Look instead for publishers, editors, other historic writers or even, if you are lucky, a survivor of the incident you are evaluating.  You want names of each person, their own qualifications for critiquing the material and a direct quote about either the writing style, the historic accuracy or preferably both.  Do not just say “Jim Smith says it is a terrific book.”  I want solid reasons why this critic liked or disliked the material and some solid statements about the author’s writing ability and/or historic accuracy.  One singular element of the historic accuracy will come from you, the researcher.  Before you even consider beginning your paper you must do extensive research on the event in question.  Remember that there are always two sides to every story and each event has its supporters on both sides.  Read it all until you become the expert on that subject.

 

Then, as you read the book, you will know whether the author deviates from historic fact.  From there your analysis will consider the purpose of the deviation.  Is it simply ignorance or is there an ulterior motive that the author is using to alter what truly happed to support their own agenda.  You will be the star player here and the critics you choose need to support your statements.  You may decide the author is not historically accurate but you need to support the why of that statement just as you would if they were historically correct and you are making foundational statements to support that issue.  Just because someone wrote a lot of books and many people like them does not mean they are historically accurate.  Remember, you are the authority here so never, never, never use “I believe”, “I think”, “Perhaps”, “I feel” or anything other than pure conviction.  You are the expert and your reader looks to you to know. 

 

Failure to fully support the historic accuracy issue will result in losing half credit for this section.  Failure to fully support the author’s credentials as a writer will also result in a deduction of half credit. 

 

For this I want quotes that support the authenticity and talent of this writer.  Remember this is a historic rendering so you need to consider whether your author does a good job with conveying the subject matter and staying true to the historic relevance of the incident.  An author who chooses a historic character like Abraham Lincoln and depicts him as a Vampire slayer is obviously not to be trusted academically.  This is fantasy and should be regarded as such.  Make sure your author stays true to the essence of the historic event even if he or she deviates from every historic element.  Remember, you are the authority and you decide.  This is your review.

 

Section 2

 

Section 2 relates to the writing style of your author and the intent of this analysis is to learn from that author to elevate your own writing skill.  Discuss the ploys used by the author such as 1^st person narrative or 3^rd person.  Does this work for the book?  If it does, discuss why and how it works, if it does not, discuss the reasons it fails.  Look to see if special font is used in certain areas and discuss the effect of this and whether it works.  Discuss the use of dialect, if it is used, in your story.  Does it detract or does it work?  How or how not?  Look over the author’s work to see how they succeeded or not in hooking you into the story.  How did they introduce the characters; how did they make them sympathetic or hateful?  The author is manipulating your emotions and you want to learn how to do that in your writing.  Evaluate the mood of the writing and see how that works for you.  Look at the author’s use of humor, pity, sadness, rage.  Was it effective in moving you emotionally?  How did they do that?  Be specific.  Was the narrative smooth or did the author leave gaps in time.  Did they do that purposefully or not and how effective was it?  Look to see if they story lagged or was this a real page-turner.  How did they handle action sequences?  Were they real?  Were they authentic?  How so.  In the end, you will want to do a full appraisal of the author’s work discussing what worked and what did not.  If something did not work, you must advance your own ideas about how you would do it differently and why you believe your path is the better one.  It is only not to like all aspects of the writer’s work.  Some of your best teachers show you what not to do.  This is a full analysis so be careful you do not slip into a plot summary when describing the events. 

 

Anyone submitting a plot summary in place of a full writing analysis will immediately lose all credit for this section.   I will be evaluating how well you support your ideas and will deduct points for ideas presented but not fully supported. 

 

Section 3

 

This section involves the messages your author places within their narrative to convey a specific theme.  There are many themes in every story and each reader will find those themes that speak to them.  You will pick four (4) themes and you will provide three specific references within your book to support the use of that theme.  You will provide page numbers along with the discussion of the event in question.  This is meant to teach you about the art of citing your material within your paper.  With each theme, I want you to discuss why that theme was especially important to the story.  Then I want you to discuss why that theme was important to you.  Why did it jump out at you when you read the story?  Do this with each of your themes and truly engage in discussion about the importance of the themes. 

 

Failure to offer an extensive discussion about this section will result in a deduction of points.

 

Section 4

 

This section is where you bring those four themes you found in your book and bring them into your own personal life.  Here I want 1^st person narration.  You are reliving that situation as it happened.  That child within you remembers it all and will tell you once you engage with it.  Discuss what you were feeling, what thoughts crossed you mind, what decisions you had to make.  As you progress through the event in question you want to remember whether you had immediate reactions or did you think about it and then react?  Perhaps you did not react at all.  Evaluate whether that was the right decision.  Evaluate how you handled the situation and drawing from the book, how did the book show you another avenue to pursue.  Do this with each of your four themes.

 

Failure to engage in a first-person narrative will result in a loss of full credit for this section.  I do not want you to talk about yourself in this event as though you were a different person. An example of third person narration when describing an event involving betrayal is “My mother used to tell me to defend my family first and I always remember that.”  Instead, I want you to live this, inhabit this, be this event.   An example of this is the following dialogue.  “I was being attacked not by some neighborhood bully but by the mother of my own father.  I was seven years old and her words stung to my core.  ‘You are worthless and you will never amount to anything ever.’  I hated her then.  I hated her words; her expression of hate.  The attack came out of nowhere and I was frozen.  I dared not talk back to her as I had been taught by my parents to always respect my elders.  I did not respect her then.  I desperately wanted to grab her by the throat and strangle her.  I wanted to shout into her hateful face that it was she who was worthless, that it was she who would never amount to anything but I did not.  I felt weak and I hated that and I wanted to cry but something deep inside would not let me do that.  That would have been my own final betrayal to myself.  I looked to my parents standing nearby, hoping they would save me but they did not.  Their silence told me that they agreed with her hateful words; they hated me as well.  I was a failure, a disappointment to them and worthless.  This could have been the turning point in my life, forcing me into a downward spiral that would destroy my self-confidence entirely.  Instead, I felt a fire deep inside that told me they were all wrong and someday I would show them.  I have never fully recovered from that encounter; I will remember it forever.  It is a film clip that plays over and over in my memory, reminding me that the only source of support that I can always depend on is within me.  When all else fails, I will always have me and it will be enough.  I survived that moment and I never spoke of it to my parents.  I often wonder if they noticed when I silently slipped away from them.”  This dialogue gives a glimpse into my mind at that moment and it exposes a portion of my inner person.  I am vulnerable but I am never weak.  This is where inspiration lives.  I survived and my message to my readers is that they can survive what has happened to them in their lives.  It teaches that the past must never determine the future.  I am the captain of that ship and I steer my ship to success and happiness.  I can see the sadness, experience the regret and taste the tears but I am made of stronger stuff and those people, those events, those feelings will never defeat me.  I will always use them to make me stronger. 

 

The purpose of this portion is to engage your emotions when writing.  When you write someone else’s story, you will not have gone through all they did but you must learn to draw from your own private reserve of life experiences to convincingly convey the emotions.  You may be writing about the holocaust but just because you never experienced that event, perhaps you did experience betrayal, perhaps confinement, perhaps suffering under someone else’s condemnation.  You must be able to break that event into sequences you can relate to so you can manipulate your reading into engaging with the emotions of the story.  A writer who can harness his or her emotions and channel them into their writing becomes one of the greats, not just some hack.  This is what you want.  You are a game changer, a world changer.  Your words can and will stir millions but only if you gain the trust and respect of your readers.  You want to leave your readers wanting more.  They will wait for you, perhaps impatiently, waiting for your next book, your next words.  This is how you make a difference.

 

Section 5

 

This is the conclusion of your paper, a last wrap up and in this section, you will evaluate the entire book and discuss how this book made you a better person.  I do not want you to simply tell me you learned something about the event in question.  What I do want is an analysis of how event in the book triggered memories in your past.  Discuss how an event in the story made you remember something from your life history.  Discuss the event a bit and talk about what you learned from the book in dealing with that situation.  Perhaps the book supported your actions and if so talk about that fully.  If the book suggested another path you could have taken, discuss how relevant and important that knowledge will be in your future encounters.  I want at least four (4) events for discussion here.  I want some real soul searching here.  Consider your heart and evaluate the person you see.  Remember that yesterday is history and all we can do with that is learn from our successes or our failures.  It is not as important what you have done as what you have yet to achieve.  This section is where you invest yourself in the inspirational portion of your story.  A good writer will use their own achievements and failures to engage with their reader and inspire them to greater glory.  Remember always that it is not just the achievement that is important in any life story.  That is the endgame, the goal.  The real inspiration is the journey taken to achieve that end.  That someone achieved something is worth acknowledging and celebrating but that they did so by enduring seemingly insurmountable odds makes this reverential.  It makes you weep with joy at the reading, cry out in anguish and gives you the strength, the courage at the end of a very hard day to say “I will try again tomorrow.”  We can never let “them” win, we can never ever give up.  There is too much as stake and you are too important not to fight with every ounce of your strength to succeed.  Remember always that the best revenge is success.  Seeking revenge at someone else’s expense cheapens you and you are worth more than that.  Remember that the world is looking to follow your example and you want to give them something worthwhile to look at.  You are shaping the future, one person at a time.  You begin with yourself; you walk the walk and you lead by example. 

 

This last section is vital in building your strength as an inspirational leader.  I am looking for true inspiration here and if I do not see it there will be points deducted.