Massachusetts College Exploring the Concept of Identity and Self Awareness HW
Description
- CHOOSE A QUESTION: You should choose a question that you want to explore. I have give you four bullet point topics that you could choose between at the beginning of the Research Paper Proposal handout. Choose one of these topics, and then think more specifically about what you want to say about it.
- For example, bullet point 1 asks you to think about themes that are especially well highlighted by using monster stories. So, in the research paper proposal, you should say the particular theme you can to explore (maybe something like “human vulnerability,” as Stephen Asma writes about).
- Write a few paragraphs about how you see this theme, then, appearing in the texts that we have read up until this point. So, you could write about how the use of monsters highlights human vulnerability in Beowulf in one paragraph, in “The Saga of Halfdan, Brana’s Fosterling” in a separate paragraph, in “Sindbad the Sailor and Sindbad the Porter” in another paragraph, etc.
- Explain why this topic matters. What I mean by that statement is this topic you’re talking about should help us understand an idea better related to these texts. In your previous writing tasks, this question may have been said as the “So What” question. I will link to this page from Indiana University that talks more about how you can write an answer to this question.
- CONSIDER PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES TO USE: You should explain what sources you will use. The research paper assignment that is due during Finals Week needs you to use texts we’ve read and three scholarly sources.
- PRIMARY TEXTS: In the overall research paper, for primary texts you should discuss (a) one or both of the texts Beowulf and the “Saga of Halfdan, Brana’s Fosterling” and (b) at least four texts from Week 5 on. Never Let Me Go must be used. At this point, you might not know how exactly you will use Never Let Me Go because we’re starting with it, so you do not have to be too specific about your use of that work.
- Indicate which texts you plan to use at this point. You can change your mind as you shift to write the research paper, but I want to know so far what you are thinking you will use.
- PRIMARY TEXTS: In the overall research paper, for primary texts you should discuss (a) one or both of the texts Beowulf and the “Saga of Halfdan, Brana’s Fosterling” and (b) at least four texts from Week 5 on. Never Let Me Go must be used. At this point, you might not know how exactly you will use Never Let Me Go because we’re starting with it, so you do not have to be too specific about your use of that work.
