You may choose to discuss the two stories alongside each other in your essay (comparing and contrasting) or write about them one at a time (devoting half of your essay to each).
For your essay, choose two of the following short stories to read and discuss:
James Baldwin, from The Fire Next Time, 1963
Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Cafeteria, 1968
Joan Didion, Goodbye to All That, 1967
Ralph Ellison, New York, 1936, 1986
F. Scott Fitzgerald, My Lost City, 1932
Langston Hughes, When the Negro Was in Vogue, 1940
Jane Jacobs, from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961
José Martí, New York Under the Snow, 1888
Edgar Allan Poe, from Doings of Gotham, 1844
E. B. White, Here is New York, 1949
Anzia Yezierska, from Red Ribbon on a White Horse, 1950
Here are some questions to consider as you create your thesis: