Step 1: Read Joan Didion’s “Sentimental Journeys” and answer the following questions, citing from the text as necessary:

1) What is Didion’s intellectual or research problem? Think about the Booth formula of naming a topic, adding a question, and articulating significance—what would Didion’s be?

2) What is her main claim? How does she reach this claim?

Step 2: Begin to brainstorm your own possible research topics:

Pick 2 focused topics, as Booth describes them in section 3.3 of “From Topics to Questions,” that grow out of this seed text. Explain what in the Didion triggered your interest in this topic (you should cite a particular moment or moments in the relevant seed text).  In class, we will add questions to these topics.

Length: 250-400 words

Submit as a comment in response to this post. Due by the start of class on Monday, 3/13.