Final Project: Analytical Research Paper + Presentation
Analytical Research Paper
5-7 pages, 12pt type, double-spaced, with one-inch margins
This is an analytical research paper. This means that you will not simply be collecting information about your topic; you will also be interpreting your research findings and drawing conclusions about your topic.
Topics: Your first task is to come up with a topic for your research paper. Your topic must be connected in some way to our semester’s broad themes of Language, Identity, and Representation.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU CHOOSE SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN!!! I recently heard an author who was being interviewed say, “All research is ME-search!” This is a great attitude to keep in mind as you consider what you might want to research and write about. We will be doing some brainstorming together. You may want to think about the issues you addressed in your “single story” example or in your “Representation in the Media” example to give you some information about what issues you naturally gravitate towards.
By Wednesday, November 16th before class, post three possible topic ideas to the blog, keeping in mind that you are looking for a topic that will lend itself to analysis, rather than simple collection of information. All three should be ideas that you are genuinely interested in.
On Monday, November 21st, you will bring your selected topic with you to class in writing either in the form of a one-paragraph articulation of the topic, a traditional outline, or some combination of those two formats. You should be able to express your topic in terms of a single question that will guide your research. Then think about the writing of the paper as an effort to answer your research question. Expect that you will need to share this question with your classmates.
As you develop your topic and formulate your research question, keep in mind the following questions:
–Is this an interesting topic? It’s particularly important that the topic genuinely interest you!
–Can I find adequate sources to research this topic?
— Is this a topic that will yield analysis, rather than simply the reporting of information?
–Is this topic either too broad or too narrow for a paper of this length?
–Is my question open-ended, rather than yes/no?
Sources: In writing this paper, you must draw from a minimum of four sources. You will cite your sources in accordance with the MLA guidelines (9th Edition). We will be reviewing the guidelines together in class, and you will receive a separate handout with more detailed instructions about using and citing sources.
The last page of your essay will be a Works Cited page that lists all the sources you refer to in your paper. (This page should say “Works Cited” at the top of the page.) This is different from a bibliography; a bibliography lists all the works you’ve consulted, but a Works Cited list includes only those sources you’ve actually quoted or referred to in your paper. You will be following MLA 9th Edition (2021) guidelines in formatting your entries.
By Wednesday, November 24th, you will submit a preliminary list of sources to me via Google Docs, by placing your document in your individual ENG2100 folder.
Drafts Due: Bring three hard copies of your draft with you to class on Wednesday, November 30th
Presentations: You will be sharing your research with the class in presentations on Wednesday, December 7th and Monday, December 12th. We will be picking names from a hat to determine the order of the presentations. You should be prepared to spend 6-8 minutes sharing your research findings with the class in whatever format you think will be most interesting and effective. Be sure to include the question you were asking and your most important takeaways from the project. These presentations will happen before you have submitted the final version of your essay, so you may get information from the presentation that will help you with your revisions. Attendance at both of these sessions is mandatory.
Essays Due: NO LATER THAN Friday, December 16th. Again, you will be submitting your finished essay by placing it in your English 2100 folder and giving it the title “Your Name Analytical Research Paper”.
Essay #2 – Textual Analysis
Essay Length: 4-5 pages
Drafts Due: Wednesday, November 2nd. Bring three copies of your draft with you to class.
Essays Due: Friday, November 11th (placed in your private Google Doc folder)
For this essay, you will be taking a deep dive into one of the texts we’ve read so far this semester. You will be generating your own essay topic which you will express in the form of a question that you are asking about the text. To some extent, the approach you take will be determined by the text you choose, but in all cases, your job is to use this essay writing process to understand some aspect of your chosen text more deeply and fully and to communicate that understanding clearly to your reader.
Possible Texts:
Edward Jones, “The First Day”
Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”
Richard Rodriguez, “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” (excerpt)
Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”
Sherman Alexie, “Superman and Me”
Jamila Lyiscott, “Three Ways to Speak English”
Taylor Mali, “Like Totally Whatever, You Know”
Melissa Lozada-Oliva, “Like Totally Whatever”
Chimamanda Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story”
Process:
Step One – Select your text. Which of these texts grabbed your attention most fully or stuck with you most persistently after reading it? Which text do you still not fully understand? Which text could you happily spend more time with? Use these questions to determine the text you will write about! It is generally a good idea to select a text that you found challenging, rather than the one that seemed most accessible to you.
Step Two – Reread and Annotate. Use this re-reading as an opportunity to identify those elements of the texts that seem to you to be the most important. That might mean zeroing in on the argument that the author seems to be making; it might mean marking passages that illuminate deeper issues or relationships; it might mean taking note of essential vocabulary or terminology. You will be coming back to your annotations as you craft your analysis, so be sure to highlight any text that you may want to quote in your essay! Also, use these marginal notes to start naming what you are noticing in the text, describing it in your own words, and jotting down your own questions, comments, and reactions to what you are reading.
Step Three – Determine your Focus. Now that you have re-read the text, you are ready to decide on the question your paper will be focusing on. (I am a believer in focusing on a question at this stage, rather than a thesis.) Your question may address an author’s rhetorical strategies; it may delve deeply into the content of a text (through a question like, “What does Gloria Anzaldua’s essay reveal about the intersection of language, gender, and identity?”); or it may focus on argumentation (How does Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s poem offer a counter-argument to Taylor Mali?). Test your question by asking the following questions:
–Is this question an OPEN-ENDED question (i.e. NOT a yes/no or either/or question)?
–Is this a question that will lead me INTO the text (rather than AWAY from it)?
–Is this a question that will yield ANALYSIS (rather than DESCRIPTION)?
–Is this a question that genuinely interests me?
Step Four – Make a Plan. Do not begin writing your essay without some kind of plan. Your plan may look like a traditional outline. It might be a list of your body paragraphs, spelling out the topic or main idea of each one. It might be an idea map that places your question at the center and imagines all your ideas as growing out of that central question. You should be referring back to your annotations here. Use the passages you’ve marked and the ideas you’ve generated in the margins as the skeleton for the essay. This way, your ideas will grow directly out of the text. This tends to be a better strategy than coming up with ideas and then looking for “evidence” in the text to back them up! If you are stuck, try doing some freewriting in response to your question to unlock your creativity and get a better sense of what it is that you really think.
Step Five – Write a Draft. Use your plan to write your draft. Sometimes it’s easier to start with the body paragraphs, then go back and write your conclusion once you have figured out what it is you have to say. As you write, remember that your task here involves close reading and analysis. This means that every body paragraph will probably include one or more quotations from the text. Each time you include a quotation, be sure that you provide some lead-in or introduction to the quotation and then offer some analysis of the quotation itself, explaining just what it is that you want the reader to notice about the quotation and connecting the quotation to the idea that you are exploring in that paragraph.
Step Six – Revision. During this stage of the process, you will be integrating the feedback you have gotten from your peers and your professor and reworking your essay in order to express your ideas more clearly and effectively. You will notice that our schedule leaves plenty of time between the first draft of the paper and its final due date. My expectation is that you will be doing a LOT of rewriting during that period, adding depth and complexity to your essay and in many cases, changing your focus entirely once you have figured out (through the drafting process) what you REALLY want to say. Don’t be afraid to let go of any material in the paper that is taking the reader away from your focus, and make sure that your revised paper incorporates and highlights any new ideas that you developed during the process of writing your first draft. You will probably want to rewrite your introduction completely, so that it spells out more clearly exactly where this essay is headed.
Step Seven – Proofreading and Submission. Just as you did for the Literacy Narrative, you will be submitting your finished essay to me by placing it in the Google Docs folder that you created for this purpose. Be sure to give the file a name that includes your name, ENG2100,and Textual Analysis. Once you have placed the document in the folder, consider the paper submitted. Do NOT go back into the file and make any changes, even AFTER I have read and commented on the essay. If you decide that you want to rewrite the paper after I have “returned” it to you, make a copy of the file, identify it as a REWRITE, and use that new file to work on your revisions.
The Literacy Narrative
Length: 4- 5 pages, double-spaced, 12 pt. type
Draft Due: by Wednesday, September 28th. Print out three copies of your draft and bring them with you to class.
Essays Due: by Friday, October 7th. To submit this essay, please create a Google Doc Folder with the name Your Name ENG2100 and share it with me at [email protected]. Place your essay inside this folder. Label your file “Your Name Literacy Narrative”, but give the essay itself a title that introduces the reader to the central theme of your essay and invites him/her/them to begin reading!
In this first formal essay of the semester, you will be exploring some aspect of your own literacy story. We could spend a long time exploring all of the various ways that people have tried to define literacy, but for our purposes, the term refers to the ability, confidence, and willingness to engage with language to acquire, construct, and communicate meaning in all aspects of daily living. This means that, no matter what its focus is, your essay will explore some aspect of language as it connects to identity, education, relationships, etc.
Your job here is NOT to tell the WHOLE story of your personal history as a reader/writer/student/storyteller/language learner, etc…; instead you will be choosing a particular “slice” of your story to focus on and considering the ways in which that it has shaped your current identity with respect to literacy.
Thus, one of the most important first steps you’ll need to take as you move from your pre-writing, to your draft, and then to your finished essay is to identify the specific story you wish to tell. This could be a single event (as Edward Jones does in “The First Day”) or it could be a handful of linked anecdotes (as Amy Tan does in “Mother Tongue”). Kim Liao’s essay “Defining My Identity through Language” (in JTC) may also help you in thinking about how to identify the most fertile aspects of your own literacy story. Your story should be anchored in specific details that bring it to life, and the voice you use in writing this essay should express your own authentic identity and perspective.
This essay is called “Literacy Narrative” because it is about the theme of literacy. A narrative is a text that recounts a story. However, in addition to its narrative or storytelling component, your essay should also be reflective, offering some insight into the story you’ve chosen to relate and its implications for your own identity. This means that you will not simply be telling a story; you will also need to think about the significance of the story and connect it to larger issues or themes in your life.