Research Paper

Purpose and Instructions: The literary research paper functions as a capstone project, in that it requires the student’s highest level of writing and critical thinking skills. The student is required to choose a text from the class readings and analyze the text from a variety of perspectives and contexts. The student should draw their own conclusions as to the impact of the topic on literature of the period, as well as the impact of the historical context on the text itself.

A literary research paper is a compilation and interpretation of a text and of critics’ opinions on a specific subject in a literary work. Since the selection of materials is filtered and processed by the writer, the paper reflects the author’s views also; hence, it is both objective and subjective in content. Because the paper expresses the writer’s opinions, s/he must find a topic of interest from a work that s/he has read and examined.

The paper should be 5 pages and should be argumentative. The student must take a stance on the text they have chosen and defend it. The paper should include references from the primary text and from at least 5-7 secondary sources. The paper should contain both in-text citations and a works cited page.

Research paper should adhere to MLA conventions throughout

Lesson 1

Realism

Introduction (C1-22)

Whitman: “Song of Myself” (C23-65)

Lesson 2

Local Color Realism

Twain, “The Notorious Jumping Frog” (C115-19)

Chopin, ” The Awakening ” (C548-576)

Week 3

Lesson 3

Mainstream Realism

James, “Daisy Miller” (C410-50)

Lesson 4

Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” (C542-544)

Week 4

Lesson 5

Naturalism

Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Why I Wrote TYWP” (C842-57)

Crane, “The Open Boat” (C1048-63)

Week 5

Lesson 6

African-American Lit

Washington, Up from Slavery (C701-24)

DuBois, from The Souls of Black Folk (C920-55)

Week 6

Lesson 7

Modernism I: Poetry

Moore, “Poetry” (D339-40)

Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (D297)

Pound, “The River Merchant’s Wife” (D297-98)

Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” (D300-308)

Eliot, “The Waste Land” (D365-78)

Lesson 8

Modernism II: Fiction

Anderson, “Winesburg” & “Hands” (D253-57)

Porter, “Flowering Judas” (D473-81)

Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/heming.html (Links to an external site.) )

Fitzgerald, “Babylon Revisited” (D646-61)

Week 7

Lesson 9

Modernism III: Poetry

Cummings “Cambridge Ladies” (D611)

Cummings, “next to god…” (D612)

Stevens, “Sunday Morning” (D273-76)

H.D., “Leda” (D333), “Helen” (D335)

Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” (D288), “Spring & All” (D286)

Frost, “Mending Wall” (D220-21); “Stopping By Woods” (D233-34)

Week 8

Lesson 10

The Political 1930s

Faulkner, “Barn Burning” (D771-83)

Lesson 11

The 60s

Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (E344-55)

Lesson 12

Minimalism & Postcolonialism

Carver, “Cathedral” (E743-54)

“A Good Man is Hard to Find.” by Flannery O’Connor . This text is located in Volume E of your text book.

“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor . This text is located in Volume E of your textbook on pages 435-449.

read John Cheever’s, ” The Swimmer”(139-147) read Eudora Welty’s ” Petrified Man ” (45-54).

read John Cheever’s, ” The Swimmer”(139-147) .

read Kurt Vonnegut’s, Slaughterhouse Five (E344-55) .

read “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This text is located in Volume D on pages 646-660.

read Faulkner, “Barn Burning”

The requirements are all above, and the contents of the file are also related to this research paper.