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Research Paper A.P. Literature and Composition
Assignment. Choose a major work or an author we have studied this year, a novelist, playwright, or short story writer. Or choose a poem or poet we have studied. Write a 5-7 page research paper about this subject using a minimum of three legitimate outside sources. Your paper must follow MLA guidelines for manuscript format and citation conventions.
Getting Started. Begin with a school-sponsored site (e.g. Bloom or Gale Group). The subject should be one that you are interested in. It may be one that you have already thought about (e.g., the role of female characters in Hamlet), or it may be a question you have not yet considered (e.g., How much did Dylan Thomas use “closed form” in his poetry?)
Read pages 2179-2184 in your textbook. This will give you an overview of what this kind of paper entails. It also addresses important issues like internet reliability and plagiarism.
Review the hand out, “Sample Research Topics.” This will give you some idea of suitable topics for this assignment. It may also stimulate ideas of your own. Whatever topic you choose must be related directly to this course; it should not derive from a class you took previously (e.g., A.P. Language, 11 H, or 10H).
Some of the work on this assignment will be done in school, though obviously you will have to do drafting on your own time. Steps along the way will be graded.
Schedule.
_______________ Topic due
_______________ Tentative thesis statement and Preliminary Works Cited due
_______________ Rough draft peer annotation
_______________ Paper due
Sample Research Topics
This is not a comprehensive list. It is intended to provide a sense of what kind of topics are appropriate. You must have teacher approval for whatever topic you choose.
Novels and Plays
The relationship between a writer’s life and work: Jane Eyre/Charlotte Bronte; Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness; Tim O’Brien/The Things They Carried.
Translation in literature: Oedipus; The Plague; (The Aeneid; The Divine Comedy; Beowulf).
Literature and Politics: Heart of Darkness; The Things They Carried.
Literature and the Absurd: Camus, Stoppard, Becket.
Changes in perspective on a classic: Hamlet (e.g. 18th century excisions; 20th century Freudian readings).
Race in American literature: Song of Solomon.
A feminist perspective on mostly male-centered stories: The Plague; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Heart of Darkness; The Things They Carried.
A new historicist perspective on literature: Stephen Greenblatt on Shakespeare.
Poetry
Explore a verse form or metrical pattern: The sonnet, sestina, villanelle, haiku, free verse.
Read more of the work of a poet we have studied: Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Blake, Wordsworth, Hardy, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Mark Doty, Robert Creeley, Billy Collins.
Explore a poet who influenced or was influenced by one of the poets we studied.
Research a category of poetry: Romantic, Naturalist, Pastoral, Symbolist.
Research a prize winner: U.S. Poet Laureate; Nobel Prize; Pulitzer Prize.
