Sunday morning and it's finally stopped snowing...for now. The sun is almost shining and the birds are almost singing (I'm sure the ones in Florida or some South American country actually are singing). But it's March madness time, which means I'm grading essays while you're writing them. It has always been thus and thus 'twill always be, I suspect.
The research essay proposals are due tomorrow and so I realized that I needed to blog a little about them.
The proposals aren't intended to be too formal; they're just meant to give me an idea of what you'll be writing about and also to get you started in thinking about your topic and approach. All I want is a working title, the titles of the two novels you're comparing (it is a comparative essay, after all), a thesis statement, and a paragraph about your intended procudure.
1. The working title.
This is subject to change, but do the best you can for now. The standard would be something like this:
Fathers and Children in A Bird in the House and The Divine Ryans.
You should try to work in the titles of the novels somehow, even if you have to use them in a subtitle:
e.g. Losing My Religion: A Study of Shifting Morals in Frankenstein and A Bird in the House.
2. List the novels you're working on.
3. Thesis statement: e.g. In both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House, various characters exchange their old beliefs for a new perspective on God and the place of religion in their lives.
4. The explanation of procedure: I intend to discuss the change that characters in these two novels undergo as a result of watching the people around them. In Frankenstein, major characters such as Victor, the creature, Elizabeth and Walton all begin life with a certain view of how the world should be, according to their own notions of fate and faith. In A Bird in the House, there is a similar shift in values, particularly for the narrator, Vanessa McLeod, as she grows up in Manawaka. In both novels, the characters lose innocence as a result of knowledge, but that sense of naivete is replaced by something more substantial and based on so-called reality rather than a fantasy or lies. I will also point out the differences between these characters and novels wherever possible.
That's all. Just show that you've give it some thought, even if you're just working your way through it. Notice in the last sentence, I suggested that I would show differences when, really, I only know generally that I will try while avoiding specifics for now. When you write your paper, of course, you will be more specific. For now, I just want to know that you have some idea of what you're going to do.
Hope this helps some. Oh, and write it on a single sheet of paper, keep it neat and legible. Your name, course number, and date should be at the top of the page.
Back to grading essays.
GC
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