American Literature Forum developing plan of action for research essay

THIS IS NOT THE RESEARCH ESSAY JUST A PLAN OF ACTION FORUM FOR THE ESSAY

We have covered the Introduction to Volume C of The Norton Anthology of American Literature   
 
Introduction to Volume D

Jack Kerouac, all excerpts from On the Road
Allen Ginsberg, all poems
James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

 The Research Essay (40%) Due Week Seven via TurnItIn portal: Wednesday, February 20 by 11:00pm Essays are to be 5 pages in length, double-spaced, in Times New Roman font. You must also attach a works cited page to your essay (I cannot accept or assess a research-based essay without a works cited page). **Remember: you will need to submit your final draft electronically via TurnItIn. I cannot assess your work until you do so. I always encourage creativity and originality of thought, but I will also expect your essay to follow these expectations:  The essay constitutes an argument about a text(s) on our syllabus.  The essay should be driven by a core thesis statement, which captures your main argument or claim.  The text is your object of study. You use it to access and discuss relevant intellectual conversations, conversations that take place at the intersection of literature and cultural phenomena.  When necessary, summarize moments from the text, but go beyond those summary points. Do not simply describe what happens. Instead, focus on specific stylistic and/or thematic points to focus your discussion. You must also quote directly from the text to demonstrate and substantiate your claims about it.  Your essay should have an appropriate and creative title that engages the key ideas in your thesis. Other requirements: A minimum of 3 sources retrieved via Brescia’s library catalogue and/or databases. While it might be beneficial to learn a bit from general web sources in the early stages of developing ideas, those venues will not be able to provide you with the same quality of information that you will be able to retrieve through the library. – Note that your secondary sources might be about the text in question, or they might be about the historical/cultural context surrounding that text or author. – You must incorporate in-text citations whenever you quote from or summarize from a text (this applies to the texts on our syllabus as well as your research). – Use MLA style guidelines for your in-text citations, as well as when composing your works cited. 

Please use this forum to develop and articulate your plan of action for the Research Essay.  What work(s) of literature might you focus on?  How do you plan to develop an original argument about the text and its cultural environment?  What discussions from the term thus far might contribute to your line of thought?  In addition to the usual requirement for the forums, please also include MLA citations for two possible sources retrieved via Brescia’s databases.