Second Semester Research Project
20th Century Novel

Once you have finished reading your war novel (hopefully you are close) you will need to begin doing research about the novel (see research questions below).  Your job in writing the paper will be to synthesize your own reading of the novel with the research about the novel you have been doing. 

Possible research questions:  

  • What is the author’s biography?  Did he or she participate in a war?  How did that participation (or non participation) affect the writing of the novel and how it was received? 
     

  • What was going on culturally and historically at the time the novel was written?  How did those events affect the writing? 
     

  • How was the novel received when it was initially published?  Has that reception changed over time?  Why?
     

  • What do other readers of the novel (reviewers, literary critics, other students) think is relevant?  What is your opinion of those views (don’t think only in terms of agree or disagree, but engage with the ideas on a deeper level)? 
     

  •  Are these the most relevant ideas to be discussing about this book or are there other themes and ideas that the dominant conversation has been ignoring? 
     

  • Any other interesting information you find about the writing of the novel, its themes, its place in literary history and its philosophical stance.

Your thesis for this paper will synthesize your own reading of the novel with the larger conversation going on about the novel.  One way of thinking about your thesis would be to envision it as an answer to the question, why is this novel important and worthy of study?  Look at both how you would answer that question and how other readers of the novel have answered it.

This is an intentionally vague prompt, as there are many directions that a discussion of a novel can take and you are free to choose the direction that you find most interesting.  The important thing is that you have an original and arguable thesis that examines the complexity of the story told in your novel and says something interesting about the larger conversation about the work.

To illustrate your thesis, your paper should include the following information (in whatever order makes sense for your argument):

  1. Social/political/historical/artistic climate in which book was written and initial response to the work.  If response has evolved over time, look at that and why it happened.
     
  1. Author background as it is relevant to the ideas and themes in novel (author interviews would go nicely here but it isn't a place to write out the genealogy of the author—unless there is some understanding to be gained from know about the author's family).
     
  1. Brief plot summary
     
  2. Discussion of ideas and themes present in the novel and synthesis of the larger conversation about this novel with your own ideas (this is where the bulk of your thesis will be argued—and the majority of your research used).
     
  1. Your own evaluation of the novel.  Be sure to address the novel as a war novel.

Here is the library project page for this assignment.

Read a model paper Here and Here (n.b. these were not written about war novels so do not include an analysis of the work as a war novel)

Works Cited Page: Your paper must include correct MLA parenthetical citations and a work cited page. Please do not make up the format of your citations--use Noodlebib!  The U of I Writer's Workshop has a nice guide to in-text citations Here

Timeline:

Thur 2/28        Assignment given, research instruction 

Fri 2/29           PC Lab—preliminary research time 

Fri 3/7             PC Lab—author choice due 

Fri 3/14           PC Lab—5 annotations due 

***3/17-21 Spring Break*** 

Fri 3/28           PC Lab—5 more annotations due 

Thur 4/3          PC Lab—1 paragraph paper proposal due Tuesday 4/8 

                        Proposal should include:

  • a brief summary of the larger conversation about the book

  • a brief summary of your perspective on that conversation

  • your thesis 

Tue 4/8            Research Paper proposal due 

Fri 4/11           PC Lab—First third of rough draft due 4/15 

Tue 4/15          First third (3 pages) due (paper check) 

Thur-Fri 4/17-18         PC Lab—remaining rough draft due 4/22 

Tue 4/22          remaining rough draft due (paper check/time for peer editing) 

Thur 4/24        PC Lab—final work day, revised draft due for peer editing 4/29 

Tue 4/29          peer editing in class 

Mon 5/5          Final draft of research paper due 

Mon-Tue 5/5-6           Preparation days for research presentations 

Wed 5/7-Fri 5/16        Research presentations (I’ll schedule these around AP exams) 

***You will have additional reading and writing assignments while you are working on your research paper.  Please stay on top of your work***

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