Minithemes
"No sooner do we come into this world than bits of us start to drop off." -- Gustave Flaubert
Elements of a solid minitheme
The purpose of a minitheme is not to argue whether a book is good or bad. If you have ever attempted to argue for the merit of, say, the latest Wilco CD, you know that such arguments are a waste of time. We find art and literature to be "good" or "bad" depending on who we are. Our cultural background determines what we think is "good," not some universal scale written in the clouds.
A minitheme should not summarize a text. Your reader (your professor and your fellow students) have already read the text. Instead, you need to present a short, thoughtfully argued essay in which you say something new or interesting about the text. At some point you should tell your reader explicitly why you think your argument is significant (what relevance does it have to ethical, religious, political, or life issues?).
A minitheme makes an argument which is supported, at every turn, with page references. That is the core of a successful minitheme.
While this is not an essay in a conventional sense, it is useful to recall that an "essay" was originally understood as a "trial," something to try on, think about, or consider. Your minitheme is a trial, an attempt, not perfection. A minitheme should be thought of as lodged somewhere between creative brainstorming and a truly finished essay. Be creative first.
Additional resources
Sample minithemes
Minitheme editor comment sheet
Read several minitheme examples before writing your own minitheme.
A solid minitheme:
1. should demonstrate that the student read the entire novel (choose quotations from the beginning and end of the text for instance).
2. makes an argument (a thesis) that is supported by specific details from the text (there must be page references and quotations; even if you are just writing about one passage without quoting anything, you should orient your reader by providing a page reference).
3. does not make an obvious argument about the text under analysis.
4. uses quotations and provides page numbers. Show me that you have paid attention to details--this is very important in critical writing!
5. brings in ideas, concepts from previous class discussions (make connections!), or even entirely different classes and applies them to a text. A sociology major might use anomie to talk about the characters in Once Were Warriors (it should, in that case, provide a list of works cited).
6. is concise and professional in tone.
7. does not include dropped quotations (please use signal phrases) and is correctly formatted. See Signal Phrases for Quotes on the website.
8. should be no longer than 350 words.
9. should demonstrate careful and meticulous reading and thinking. Don't lift a quotation out of context. Do show how you came to your conclusions.
10. is coherent, nicely tying ideas and paragraphs together.
11. has a surprising or original thesis--strive to unearth an angle on a text that your classmates may not have considered.
12. does not repeat what is said in class, or written by another student. This should be your work entirely, uninfluenced by the class discussion. Do not change what you have written to coincide with our class discussion. What I foreground in class is just one point of view.