ENGL 203, Section 523
Introduction to Literature
Instructor: Kim Wells
Critical Research Assignment
Due Date: Tuesday April 25 (NO LATE PAPERS ACCEPTED)
Percentage of Final Grade: 35%
Minimum of 8 maximum of 15 pages

Assignment
Write a minimum 8 maximum 15 page paper (page length does NOT include works cited). Use MLA-style parenthetical citation for quotes, double-space, type with a 12 point font and 1 inch margins, include a works cited page. Watch your grammar & spelling and include a running header on each page with your name and page number. You must include a works cited page with a MINIMUM of 10 rigorous, critical sources. You are limited to a maximum of TWO online sources (provided they are credible online sources). What might be your most useful online source to look for-- bibliographies that will lead you to good print resources.

This paper combines your skill at research with your ability to think critically about literature. Since it's a research project, you must give yourself enough time to find sources and really read them, as well as think about what you've read, before you get started. DO NOT wait till the last minute on this project.

Choose one of the following options and write a well-developed critical research project

1.Critical Biography

Research an author's life and make a critical assertion about how the life affects the work. You can choose a poet, fiction writer or dramatist. You can choose any era, and any author "serious" or not; just realize that more "established" authors will have more written about them, and so will be easier to research. In other words, though you may love Anne Rice's fiction, there may not be enough critical, academically challenging sources written about her to make a research paper about her for this course. Research how the events in the author's life may or may not have influenced his/her work. Cite specific poems, or quotes from the fiction, to illustrate your points. You will want to use academic journals, biographies, autobiographies, letters to and from the author you choose, interviews with and essays written by the author.

While you include research on the author's life, critically evaluate one or more of the author's major works with that new research in mind. You must be careful not to make general, broadly sweeping assertions about the author's life that you cannot back up with proof from reliable sources, and you must be careful to cite all evidence from critics carefully and accurately. Ask yourself: Why did the author choose to write? How is the author's narrative technique and subject matter influenced by, say, where he/she grew up? How do historical events show up in their literature (for example, Ernest Hemingway experienced WW1C as well as a number of favorite "outdoorsy" pastimesC and it shows up in his writing). But be careful! Writers are known for inventing and revising the facts of their lives, changing details of events to have different outcomes in their literature. Before you make an assertion that a "fact" that appears in the writers' work is from their lives, make sure you can prove it. Be sure that the biographical data amplifies and illuminates the author's work, rather than having your writing be mere trivial detail.

2.Epistolary
Choose one city from column one, one from column two, and a date. Then, create a fictional situation in which two people (one who lives in city 1 and one in city 2) are writing to each other, at or around the specific date you chose. You must do several things in this assignment

• figure out what an epistolary is and how to structure one (find examples of them written by other writers)
• carefully research the history of BOTH cities, during (or very close to) the time frame you choose. You will want to look at big events and little
• what would your "character" have been doing for fun in the city? What was politics like? What did the city look like? What was entertainment like? Describe places the person may have gone. What would they do for a living? How would work-conditions be? Use sensory detail.
• Create a fictional frame for your research; why are the characters writing to each other? What is their relationship? Why are they in two different cities? SHOW them to me. Draw a "word picture."
• Use 10 or more sources for your information
• journal articles, biography, history textbooks, newspapers from the period, chronologies (available in the reference section of our library-- these could be especially useful). These and more can be good source work. If you're not sure about a source, check with me.
• Be creative--find good graphics, draw your own art, make up events to go with the ones you find in your research. Graphics cannot fill up your pages though-- make sure you meet the minimum length requirement without the aid of ANY graphics.

Once you have written your creative 5-8 pages, write a 5-8 page evaluative essay reflecting on what you included in your creative section; tell me why you wrote the way you did, why you chose to include specific events. You must judge your relative success or failure at achieving what you wanted to achieve. DO NOT neglect one city and write about the other only --make sure to research BOTH cities and describe them both. You must use the epistolary form-- no diaries or journals.