SDSU Public Transport Influences Faulkner Discussion

Directions: Two of our short stories take place primarily aboard public transportation.
In your paper, identify the two stories (and their authors) and analyze how the authors’ use
of public transportation as setting contributes to the overall effect or effectiveness of the
stories.
[Hint: to do this effectively, you should identify each story’s main message or the main point the
author wants to make. From there, you can address how this is achieved by having public
transportation as the setting of the story.]
I. In the introduction paragraph:
• Identify the two stories (and their authors) that are set primarily aboard public
transportation.
• Using transitional sentences, lead into the central claim for the paper, which will
respond to the prompt, above. Your goal is to contextualize the topic and your
upcoming thesis statement.
• End your introduction paragraph with your thesis statement.
[Remember that a thesis statement contains the guiding statement for the entire paper,
and it is a statement containing your main idea for the paper. It is not a question,
quotation, or an announcement of what you or your paper is going to say, do, prove, etc.
For example, this is NOT a good thesis statement: “In this paper, we will see how public
transportation contributes to the overall effectiveness of the two stories.”
In this paper, we will see how public transportation contributes to the overall
effectiveness of the two stories.
[Note: the authors’ use of transportation as a setting could function in the same or different
ways in each story.]
 

II. In the supporting body paragraphs:
• Discuss your response to the prompt in well-focused body paragraphs. (Each body
the paragraph should contain one main idea which supports your thesis statement.)
• Remember that body paragraphs begin with a topic sentence (a statement) which
contains the main idea for the entire paragraph. That means that the topic sentence
is not a question. It is also not a quotation or a specific story or example
(because these are too specific; they are not main ideas).