Literary
Research
Project
Independent Reading
•
Tuesday’s log: Think of a book you’ve read
whose character you have identified with on
some level. Write about that connection.
•
Wednesday’s log: Who is the most
interesting/disturbing/confusing character
you’ve encountered in a book? Write
about that character.
• Thursday’s log: Insert yourself as a
new character in the novel you are
reading now or one you have read this
year. Explain what role that
character would play in the plot and
in relation to the other characters.
Literary Research
Learning Targets
I can:
• evaluate the validity of sources
• collect scholarly research and incorporate it
into original analysis
• develop a complex and debatable thesis
• create an outline of claims, supporting
evidence and analysis
• follow MLA format to write a literary
analysis
• cite sources correctly using MLA format
• think deeply and critically about a specific
topic of interest in a work of literary merit
Select a Work of Literature
List of Major Works Studied
in High School
1984
Odyssey
Frankenstein
Night
Invisible Man
Huck Finn
Othello
WomanWarrior
Hamlet
Persepolis
Great Gatsby
Candide
Eyes Were Watching God
Romeo and Juliet
Twelve Angry Men
Possible Topics of Interest
From the Texts We’ve
Studied
• Use of black/dark humor in Grendel
• Motif of invisibility in Invisible Man
• Decay of the Southern family in The
Sound and the Fury
How to Find a Topic
• Look for a text you have connected
with
• Look for a topic that interests you and
think of a text that focuses on that topic
(i.e. supernatural = Hamlet;
existentialism = Grendel; ethics in
science/medicine = Frankenstein;
interracial relationships= Othello)
• Look for a setting that interests you
(Deep South = The Sound and the
Fury; the 1920’s = The Great Gatsby)
Read What the Critics Say
The secondary sources you will use must
come from academic search engines.
(These cannot be found by googling the
book title.)
Academic search engines include:
• Infotrac (http://opac.libraryworld.com)
• EBSCO Host, Student Research Center
and Grolier Online which can all be
accessed through KY Virtual Library
(see handout in your packet to access
these sites)