English 365: 19th-Century
British Poetry and Prose
I call this assignment a "project" rather than a "paper" because there are increasingly many forms that such a production can take -- including electronic and multi-disciplinary ones. I will work with you as you think about a possible project and I will offer whatever initial assistance and guidance I can to help make this project both rewarding and genuinely useful for you, in terms of both the materials you explore and develop on your own and the form and format in which you choose to present your project.
The research project is to be an independent piece
of work for which you conduct preliminary research that is embodied in the final
product. The project can be critical, theoretical, interpretive, and/or creative
in nature, but it must be grounded in research you conduct
on your own and which must be clearly reflected in the final product. And it
must focus on a subject clearly related to either general or specific concerns
of this course.
This project comprises 25% of your course grade.
The subject is entirely up to you, although I will ask that you give me a statement -- in writing -- by the end of October indicating what you propose to do for your project. This statement will include both a description of the topic of your project and a brief description of the form and format of the project itself, including a plan for your research. The bottom line regarding your subject is that it should be something in which you have developed a real interest -- something you want to think about in further detail, examine closely, subject to critical or theoretical consideration, and then write about as a means of uniting your research experience with your own creative thinking about your chosen subject matter. This project is not a "report," in which you simply amass secondary material and then record it in a digest form. Rather, it is an independent undertaking that needs to begin and end with your own interests and insights and to reflect your own personal and professional identity and aspirations. The "research materials" are there to expand, supplement, and refine your own thoughts and help you frame the arguments you make, but they are not the central focus of the project: that focus should remain on your ideas, your insights.
Many of you will probably think of this project
in terms of a "paper," since that is a form (and a metaphor) that is familiar
to all university students. Within that model, you should think of a project
running some ten pages or so, complete with research apparatus like notes and
bibliography. If your project takes a different form, you should use that "paper"
model as a rough guideline for the extent of time and effort required for the
project.