[LM_NET] HIT: SEC: AP English Research Paper: part 2

[Cindy Gulden <tl_cgulden@K12SERVER.MVECA.ORG>]

Thanks so much for all of the people who gave me great input on  
research for AP English 12.

Here is my initial target:

> Can you help me?  I have a first year AP English  teacher in who  
> would like to have her AP English students do a research paper.  She  
> is interested in hearing if other AP English teachers have their  
> students do research papers, and if so, what topics or ideas  they  
> explore?

Responses are below:

At my school, the senior AP teacher had the students conduct research  
centered around topics in a novel they read--The Poisonwood Bible.   
The students could research diseases, missionaries, etc. from that  
time period in Africa.

~~~~~

Suggestion, don't know if it will work.  I am a junior high librarian  
and have been listening to The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  As I am  
listening to it the story of Frankenstein keeps coming up.  It would  
be interesting to take the two concepts from these stories, man  
becoming God, and go somewhere with that.  For example, what if the  
student researched current science and the possibilities of creating  
life as is the case in Jenna Fox story and then make comparisons to  
literature.  This could be an art imitates life or life imitates are  
type of thing.  I hope this helps, I do tend to pull things out of the  
air and they don't make much sense sometimes.

~~~~~

We have AP at every level and Pre-AP as well.

Freshmen AP: Mythology
Sophomore AP-Controversial current topics
Juniors-American History Historical persuasive topics:  President  
Regan's foreign policy was a success/not a success, etc.
Seniors: Compare/Contrast 2 poems either by the same author or 2  
different authors and critique for themes, style, etc. in historical  
context.

~~~~~

I have seen them assign novels and do projects based on those.  Many
times they write and compare different novels by the same author or
similar books by different authors.

~~~~~

I worked with an AP English teacher who had her students do a large  
project where they picked a theme (alienation, envy, romantic love)  
and then had to read something like 2 novels, 5 short stories, 10  
poems, 3 plays, and 4 analytical works that dealt with that particular  
theme. It was an interesting project, and required a lot of work on my  
part trying to remember stuff I'd read in college and high school that  
incorporated particular themes, but I imagine it could be cut down and  
modified to fit a particular collection.

~~~~~

Our students do a comparative literary analysis, picking from themes,  
point of view, style, etc. Some samples below:
Allegorical stories:
      Silas Marner
      Death Comes for the Archbishop
      Scarlet Letter
      Siddartha
      One Hundred Years of Solitude
      Moby Dick
      The Pearl
      The Plague
      The Trial

Satire:
      How the author may be depicting corruption, political  
absurdities or  some other social injustice in a sarcastic or humorous  
way.
      Gullivar's Travels
      Bleak House
      Reservation Blues
      The Child Buyer
      Our Gang (Philip Roth)

Ethnic Stereotypes:
      Portnoy's Complaint
      Reservation Blues
      Raisin in the Sun
      anything by Amy Tan
      To Kill a Mockingbird

Colonialism and  “white man's” intrusion on a culture:
      A Bend in the River
      Things Fall Apart
      A Passage to India
      Room With a View
      Cry the Beloved Country
      Remains of the Day
      Age of Iron

Coming of Age:
      The World According to Garp
      A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
      Bless Me Ultima
      City Boy

~~~~~
Ours do a heavy duty exploration of a single line of "The Waste Land."


Cynthia Gulden
Library Media Specialist        
Tecumseh High School
New Carlisle, OH 45344
tl_cgulden@k12server.mveca.org




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