3770 Inquiry project

Over the course of the semester, you’ll complete a series of short assignments and finally write a paper about one book-length work, most likely a novel, or the work of one poet from the period we’re studying.  The short assignments will help you develop your paper.  They also provide a kind of discipline, to help you move through the process of studying literature carefully, instead of giving in to the always-present temptation to procrastinate.  More importantly, the short assignments will guide you through some specific ways of thinking about literary texts and their historical contexts, strategies that you might not yet know how to use.  The project will help you develop both an analysis of the literary work you’re studying and your skills as a reader and researcher.  

The project as a whole is worth 70% of your course grade – 50% as a holistic grade for the short assignments and 20% for the final paper.  I will assign tentative grades to each of the short assignments, just to let you know how you’re doing, but you may revise these at any time, and only the final grade on the whole portfolio will count.  You will not have the opportunity to revise the final paper, because it’s due so late in the term.  

In evaluating your work on this project, I will look for development and performance in the following areas:
Critical thinking and inquiry:  The central focus of this project is the inquiry process, which involves expanding, focusing, and deepening the questions you’re asking; gaining understanding of the complexity of your own inquiry; and paying attention to connections and disjunctions that emerge as you dig deeper into the study of a single text or author.  
Making complex connections among literary texts and between literature and its historical context:  One of the core concepts of this course is that literary texts are related to each other and to the world in which they are written and published.  Throughout your project, you should consider how the work you’re studying connects with the texts we’re reading together and with American culture at the turn of the century. In reading your short assignments and your final paper, I’ll look for concrete examples of connections related to topics such as literary style, social themes, historical developments, or content.  I’m also interested in how you connect the work you’re studying with primary and secondary sources and with each other’s work.  Connections like these will help you understand the complexity of literature and culture.  They may reveal common ground or shared ideas, but they may also help you gain insight into contradictions, complications, or tensions in the literature and the culture.  I’ll look for evidence that you not only notice connections but that you also use them to help deepen your own exploration.  Note, too, that one element of making these connections is acknowledging them, including ideas and evidence that come from other sources.  
Self-awareness:  In order to pursue an inquiry well, you have to be aware of your own thinking process.  As you move through the process, I’d like to you pay attention to how your understanding is developing and changing.  Being aware of your own processes, habits, and biases will help you be a better reader, thinker, and researcher.  Here, I’ll look for evidence that you’re taking the time to think clearly and critically about your own process.  And yes, this means that many of your assignments will include statements that say “I think,” or “My perspective shows,” or even “I see things differently now,” or “I’m not sure what I think.”  It’s far better to know that you’re unsure than to leap to conclusions or pretend certainty when you’re really confused.  Learning is a process of moving from confusion into clarity, but it’s important to begin by recognizing and looking closely at your own confusion.  
Effective communication:  While I value the inquiry process for its own sake, most of the time our inquiries lead to ideas that we want to share with others, whether through a lesson plan, a paper, or a presentation.  Part of the value of an inquiry is that it helps other people think about their own investigations.  No researcher or teacher completes the entire study of any text.  Rather, we build on, argue with, and question the work done by others.  In order for that process to occur, you have to be able to communicate your ideas, both what you’ve found and what you still want to know, and explain the logic behind your conclusions.  Much of the writing in this course will be informal, but you still need to be able to communicate clearly what you’re thinking, and if you can make your work engaging and enjoyable to read, all the better.  At minimum, I’m looking for clarity.  At best, I hope to enjoy reading your work.

Project Overview – Tasks and Due Dates
1/27Select a book or poet2/3Assignment 1: Reading journal – what do you notice?  what seems important?  what seems worth investigating?2/17Assignment 2: Research proposal – what question would you like to pursue?  why is it significant?  what information would help you find answers?  2/24Assignment 3:  Biographical notes – how does this text/writer’s work reflect his/her own life experience?3/3Assignment 4:  Literary history context -- how does this text/writer’s work reflect literary trends of this period?  What other writers or works does this text or set of poems fit with?3/31Assignment 5:  Historical and Ideological context notes – how does this text/writer’s work reflect social issues of the day?4/14Assignment 6: Annotated bibliography4/21Assignment 7:  Source comparison4/28Assignment 8:  Revisiting the Questions5/3Draft or outline of final paper due5/10Final paper that answers your own question about the novel or poet