Description
Assignment: Your assignment is to write a 1250-1500 word (approximately 5-6 page) research paper in which you critically analyze a significant theme or contributing technique in one of the texts we are studying this semester. As you draft your paper, please pay attention to the requirements noted below:
1. Whatever your choice of topic and text, state a thesis (which you should underline in the final draft) early in your analysis and develop it effectively in the rest of your essay;
2. Refer to specific details, both content and formoriented, in the literary text; take care, however, to avoid plot summary, providing analysis and commentary instead;
3. Incorporate a discussion of relevant formal techniques even in a predominantly contentbased analysis, and viceversa;
4. Adopt a culturespecific, crossdisciplinary approach that you deem to be particularly pertinent to your thesis. For example, for a paper on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, you should draw not only upon more strictly literaryinterpretive sources but also upon specifically Nigerian/African/postcolonial (as far as possible) historical, political, sociological, or feminist research sources to support/augment your literary criticism. (Remember that you do not have to subscribe to any one disciplinary approach if you find such an approach to be too restrictive);
5. Consult two or three relevant critical and/or theoretical sources dealing with the issue and/or literary work under study. (There are plenty of good academic sources available on-line, in Loyola’s library system, at other local libraries, or through interlibrary loan. You can use the critical materials posted under the Resources tab of our course Sakai website, but only if they’re relevant for your paper); and
6. Restrict your reliance upon secondary materials to approximately onefifth (or 20%) of your whole essay, and then chiefly to contextualize or support your independent analysis and/or observations. In other words, do not let the secondary texts become a substitute for your own thought and commentary (the latter based upon informed primary reading, of course).
7. Use accurate Modern Language Association documentation format and style. (The MLA guidelines are available in The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 8th. ed. or at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/).
Schedule: Please post a short description of your research paper topic, along with a working thesis and 2 scholarly sources you plan to use in the Discussion section of our course Sakai website link by January 10 if you want my feedback. The final version of the paper will be due electronically on the Turn-it-in link in Sakai by midnight on January 13.
Grading Policy: This essay, to be graded on the merit of its interpretive insights, research support, and stylistic accomplishments, is worth 40% of your final grade.
Sample paper topics: Listed below is a sampling of (generalized) paper topics/subject areas that would be appropriate for ENGL 273:
-The significance of narrative point of view in Things Fall Apart -TFA as a Nigerian rewriting of colonial narratives
-The politics of language in Wide Sargasso Sea
-The significance of the structure of WSS
-The woman warrior metaphor in Kingston’s text -The Woman Warrior as an “American” narrative -The significance of myth and fantasy in WW -The portrayal of “revolution” in July’s People -The politics of race in JP
-The significance of the contrastive portrayal of Bam and Maureen in JP -The role of representation and language in JP
-Nation and gender in The Reluctant Fundamentalist
-Narrative point of view in RF
-The politics of religion in RF
Please remember that these topics are fairly broad in their contours; you will need to
define your topic–and subsequent thesis statement and title–more precisely. Good luck!
