HUM 221: Research paper topics

We're going to have two papers in Humanities 221 this spring. Each will be about five pages in length, although you can go longer if you want to.

The first will be a reaction paper or response paper to a poem or other piece of creative writing that I will assign you in the next few days. In it you will do three things: (1) write about the circumstances in which you read the work of literature; (2) give some background on the work and its cultural milieu; and (3) analyze your response to the work and what specifically in the work caused you to feel that way about it.

The second will be a five- to eight-page research project. You can take an artist (a term I use to include artists, writers, musicians and anybody else who is "doing" art), a work of art, a genre (like totem poles for example) or the way a historical theme like the Trail of Tears is reflected in the arts. I would urge you to use the same general outline -- i.e. circumstances, background and analysis -- that you did in the response paper. It is due in class Friday, April 20.

One last written project: Our final exam will be in class the last day of classes, Monday, April 30. If you have a solid A in the course, you don't have to take the final.

Here is a link to some suggestions I made last year for papers in HUM 221. (Scroll down till you get to February 2006. Be patient and keep scrolling -- the first post you see on the new page will be this one, followed by something about an ice storm back in the fall. The blogposts you want will be toward the bottom and they'll have something about HUM 221 term papers in the headline.) They'll work just as well again this year.