English 101 Midterm
1. Please read the following two essays and write a one to two page analysis of each essay:
a. Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
b. Letter to a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Junior
When writing your analysis, please identify parts in each essay that contain the following:
a. Descriptive, narrative, and compare/contrast elements.
b. Metaphors, similes, irony, and other figures of speech we went over in class.
c. Logos, Pathos, and Ethos
2. Then write a one to two page critique of each essay. Why you agree or disagree with the
authors? What was convincing/not convincing in each essay? What features did you like or
did not like in each essay?
3. Then write a comparison of each essay. Which one was more convincing for you? Why?
Sam Shneider
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau details his utter disdain for the government.
It starts out by saying “A Government is best which governs least”. He disagrees with many
things the US Government does, from global colonization to slavery. He thinks government has
gotten way to big and leaders that are elected are acting exclusively out of self interest. He
dislikes the way that government gets it’s power from acting by the majority which is not
always right. Thoreau contends that man should act on what he thinks is right and wrong
instead of how the government tells you to act. He says that governments most often get too
big for their own good and fully embraces the right of revolution, the principle that founded
