Your Task Choose: ONE primary essay from Module 3, and ONE secondary essay by a different author from the Module 3 list. Examples: (This was in the module:) (Montaigne – “Of Experience”) (How Baldwin Writes the Self) (Notes of a Native Son - Baldwin) Woolf + Baldwin Baldwin + Montaigne Montaigne + Woolf Your essay must do three things: Part I: Establish the Shared Problem (brief, focused) Early in your essay, identify a shared tension both authors confront. This might include: how the self relates to history, how authority is claimed or resisted, how experience reshapes belief, or how identity complicates authorship. This section should be conceptual, not summary-heavy. Part II: Comparative Analysis (the core of the essay) Analyze: how each author approaches the same tension differently, and what rhetorical strategies they use to revise themselves or complicate their claims. Focus on: tone shifts, moments of hesitation or reversal, changes in scope, and how each essay moves rather than concludes. You should quote both authors multiple times and interpret each quotation carefully. Part III: What the Comparison Reveals Conclude by explaining what becomes visible only through comparison. Avoid declaring a winner. Instead, articulate what each author can and cannot do, and why those limits matter. Sentence-Level Requirement You must intentionally use parallelism or rhythmic syntax drawn from Artful Sentences (Ch. 5–6). At the end of the paragraph where it appears, include a note such as: (Parallel structure modeled on Tufte) Formal Requirements ≈ 1,100 words MLA format Works Cited page Quote both authors Argumentative thesis required (about difference in approach, not topic) Cite Artful Sentences if referenced What I’m Looking For Strong Essay 3s: resist simplification, show respect for both writers, articulate tension clearly, and demonstrate growing control over sentence rhythm and intellectual pacing. I am grading depth of comparison, not cleverness. example: Model Essay 3 (MLA Format) Sample Texts: Virginia Woolf, “Modern Fiction” & James Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son” Student Name English C1000 Revision Under Pressure: Woolf and Baldwin on Writing the Self Against Inherited Forms Virginia Woolf’s “Modern Fiction” and James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son” are separated by genre, historical moment, and tone, yet both essays confront the same central problem: how a writer speaks truthfully when inherited forms no longer fit lived experience. Woolf approaches this problem as a critic of literary convention, while Baldwin confronts it as a subject whose own life resists narrative containment. By comparing how each author negotiates self-revision under pressure, it becomes clear that Woolf treats contradiction as an aesthetic opportunity, whereas Baldwin experiences it as an ethical and emotional necessity. Their essays reveal two distinct modes of revision—one primarily formal, the other existential. Woolf’s “Modern Fiction” begins as an attack on Edwardian literary conventions that, in her view, mistake surface detail for life itself. She argues that traditional realism captures the external but misses the internal rhythms of consciousness. Yet Woolf does not merely reject older forms; she revises her position as the essay unfolds. Rather than prescribing a single method for modern writers, she insists that fiction must remain flexible, open to experiment, and responsive to the “myriad impressions” of lived experience. Woolf’s self-revision is subtle but significant: she moves from critique toward invitation, refusing to replace one rigid form with another. Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son,” by contrast, stages self-revision as conflict. The essay pivots around Baldwin’s relationship with his father, whose death coincides with the Harlem riot of 1943. Baldwin’s initial impulse is judgment—of his father’s bitterness, of racial injustice, of American hypocrisy—but the essay refuses to remain there. Baldwin repeatedly interrupts his own certainty, acknowledging moments where rage threatens to erase understanding. Unlike Woolf, whose revisions feel exploratory, Baldwin’s feel urgent. His revisions are not stylistic refinements but ethical recalibrations forced by grief and historical reality. The tension each author negotiates is the gap between form and truth. Woolf believes literature fails when form hardens into habit. Baldwin believes writing fails when it denies emotional complexity. Both reject simplification, but they do so for different reasons. Woolf wants fiction to capture life’s fluidity; Baldwin wants language to withstand moral pressure. Their essays reveal that revision is not merely an editorial act but a way of remaining honest in the face of inherited narratives. (Parallel structure modeled on Tufte) What becomes visible through comparison is that self-revision operates on different registers depending on stakes. Woolf’s stakes are aesthetic and intellectual; Baldwin’s are personal and historical. Woolf can afford tentativeness because her authority is secure. Baldwin’s authority must be earned sentence by sentence against forces that would reduce him to stereotype. Yet both demonstrate that strong nonfiction resists closure. Revision, for both writers, is not weakness but rigor. By placing Woolf and Baldwin in dialogue, we see that nonfiction’s power lies not in certainty but in responsiveness. Their essays model two ways of thinking in motion—one through form, the other through confrontation. What unites them is the refusal to let language settle into comfort. Self-revision becomes not a retreat, but a commitment to truth under changing conditions. Works Cited Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” Notes of a Native Son, Beacon Press, 1955. https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/570f15/baldwin.pdf Links to an external site.. Woolf, Virginia. “Modern Fiction.” The Common Reader, Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15491/15491-h/15491-h.htm#MODERN_FICTION. Tufte, Virginia. Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style. Graphics Press, 2006.