Mr. Dennis
Student Name _____________________________
American Literature
The Writers and Movements of
American Literature Research Paper
For this assignment, you will be composing a research paper based on 1) a literary movement, 2)
an author associated with that literary movement, and 3) a short work by that author. YOU will
be allowed to select the literary movement and author from the extensive list that has been
provided for you in this assignment packet.
Please note: this Research Paper is an assignment of exceptional breadth and importance within
the 11th grade English curriculum. We will be moving through the writing process slowly (thus
the two-month work period), and some of the paper will be worked on in class. However,
students will have to complete what they do not finish in class at home on their own time. Also
note that this assignment is worth an exceptionally high number of points, and if students do not
complete it – or only complete a portion of it – their overall course grade may be impacted
significantly! Remember, part of the purpose behind this assignment is to learn the PROCESS
of writing a research paper, if a step is missing, then I will not grade the steps that follow it, no
matter what. If a student does not have a step completed by the due date, he or she must
complete it late (for half credit) if he or she plans to continue with the assignment.
This project has been broken up into seven (7) steps. Each step must be completed, in the
following order:
1. Research Paper Information Packet signed and all needed materials obtained
2. Question Outline
3. Note Cards (40 minimum)
4. Information Outline
5. Rough Draft of Written Project
6. Editing and Proofreading
7. Final Draft of Written Project with Bibliography
As stated before, because part of the purpose of this assignment is to learn the PROCESS of
writing a research paper, if a step is missing, then I will not grade the steps that follow it. By
way of an example, if you completed steps 1, 2 and 3, skipped 4 and 5, but went on to complete
steps 6 and 7, I will stop grading your project at step 3.
Your final written paper has no minimum or maximum length, but history has shown that
successful research papers are, on average, between 10-12 pages in length (including the title
page, table of contents, phases 1, 2 and 3, and bibliography). You must use a minimum of four
(4) and a maximum of six (6) sources when researching your writer and literary movement; you
will NOT be allowed to use the internet as a source for your written paper.
***A note about plagiarism: please know that when it comes to plagiarism, I do not screw around. If a
work is not cited, cited incorrectly, or just plain copied/stolen from another source, whether from a
published work, an online source, or another student, you will receive a zero (0) ON THE ENTIRE
ASSIGNMENT. If you have any questions and/or concerns about whether you have plagiarized any
of your work, please come and see me BEFORE the paper’s final due date.
Mr. Dennis
Student Name _____________________________
American Literature
Needed Materials:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
One ½ inch (or 1 inch) 3-ring binder
100 3’x5” lined index cards
Plenty of loose leaf paper (NO spiral bound notebooks!)
Zippered holder for index cards
Some way of turning your project in electronically (saved to CD, jump/stick
drive)
If you have any financial issues regarding obtaining any of the above materials, please see me
BEFORE the date you are required to have them.
Project Steps and Due Dates:
Assignment
1. This sheet, signed by a parent or guardian, and
all needed materials
2. Question Outline
3. Note Cards, minimum of 40
4. Information Outline
5. Rough Draft
6. Self-Editing and Proofreading
7. Title Page
8. Table of Contents
9. Final Project – Phase 1
10. Final Project – Phase 2
11. Final Project – Phase 3
12. Bibliography
Point Value
Due Date
10
Friday, March 11
10
30
20
50
30
10
10
75
50
75
30
Wednesday, March 16
Tuesday, March 22
Friday, March 25
Monday, April 11
Wednesday, April 20
Friday, April 29
Friday, April 29
Friday, April 29
Friday, April 29
Friday, April 29
Friday, April 29
Parents
Please sign below to signify that you have read and understand this assignment. If you have any
questions, please feel free to email me at darrindennis@ccusd.org or ktenshin@gmail.com, or
leave a message for me with the school’s receptionist. Thank you!
Parent Signature ______________________________________________ Date ____________
Student Signature _____________________________________________ Date ____________
Mr. Dennis
Student Name _____________________________
American Literature
What Does the Paper Comprise of?
Though, ultimately, there are six parts to the research paper, the first two are your Title Page and
Table of Contents, while the last is your Bibliography. The real “meat and potatoes” of your
research paper are the three parts in the middle, Phases 1-3.
Phase 1 – Literary Movement (approx. 2-4 pages)
Explain the literary movement you selected in the following ways:
a. Explain the origins and causes of the movement
b. Explain what happened historically during the time period of you movement
c. Explain the main characteristics of the movement
d. Explain major themes within the movement
Phase 2 – Author (approx. 1-3 pages)
Provide a brief biography on the author you selected, who was/is a part of the literary movement
you researched for Phase 1.
a. Include information related ONLY to your author’s public/literary life/career
Phase 3 – Work (approx. 2-4 pages)
Read a short work by your author and analyze how this work is an example of literature
representative of your Phase 1 literary movement.
a. This section of your paper MUST include at least three (3) quotes from the work as part
of your analysis
b. A short work is defined these ways:
i. If prose – no less than three (3) pages in length
ii. If poetry – no less than 30 lines in length
Mr. Dennis
Student Name _____________________________
American Literature
List of Eras/Movements & Authors
Colonialism
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William Bradford
Anne Bradstreet
Jonathan Edwards
Cotton Mather
Mary Rowlandson
Samuel Sewall
Captain John Smith
Edward Taylor
Nathaniel Ward
Phillis Wheatley
Michael Wigglesworth
John Winthrop
Nationalism
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Samuel Adams
Joel Barlow
Charles Brockden Brown
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
Timothy Dwight
Hannah Foster
Benjamin Franklin
Philip Freneau
Alexander Hamilton
Patrick Henry
Thomas Jefferson
Sarah Morton
Judith Sargent Murray
James Otis
Thomas Paine
John Trumbull
Phillis Wheatley
Romanticism
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William Cullen Bryant
James Fenimore Cooper
Emily Dickinson
Frederick Douglass
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Margaret Fuller
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Washington Irving
James Russell Lowell
Herman Melville
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
John Greenleaf Whittier
Realism
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Adams, Henry
Addams, Jane
Bellamy, Edward
Bierce, Ambrose
Cable, George W.
Cahan, Abraham
Chesnutt, Charles
Chopin, Kate
Crane, Stephen
Davis, Rebecca Harding
Dreiser, Theodore
DuBois, W. E. B.
Dunbar, Paul L.
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice
Eastman, Charles A.
Far, Sui Sin
Frederic, Harold
Freeman, Mary Wilkins
Foote, Mary Hallock
Garland, Hamlin
Gilman, Charlotte P.
Harris, Joel Chandler
Harte, Bret
Hopkins, Pauline
Howells, William Dean
James, Henry
Jewett, Sarah Orne
London, Jack
Norris, Frank
Page, Thomas Nelson
Oskison, John
Riis, Jacob
Phelps, Elizabeth S.
Sinclair, Upton
Turner, Frederic J.
Twain, Mark
Veblen, Thorstein
Washington, Booker T.
Wharton, Edith
Woolson, Constance
Zitkala-sa
Modernism
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Sherwood Anderson
Djuna Barnes
Kay Boyle
Truman Capote
Willa Cather
Mr. Dennis
Student Name _____________________________
Modernism (con’t)
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Kate Chopin
e.e.cummings
Countee Cullen
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
T. S. Eliot
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Robert Frost
Lillian Hellman
Ernest Hemingway
Langston Hughes
Zora Neale Hurston
H.P. Lovecraft
Amy Lowell
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Marianne Moore
Simon Ortiz
Ezra Pound
Anne Sexton
Gertrude Stein
Shelby Stephenson
Wallace Stevens
Edith Wharton
Post-Modernism
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Maya Angelou
Isaac Asimov
James Baldwin
T.C. Boyle
Ray Bradbury
William S. Burroughs
Octavia Butler
Samuel R. Delany
Don DeLillo
American Literature
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Phillip K. Dick
Bret Easton Ellis
Ralph Ellison
William Faulkner
Neil Gaiman
William Gibson
Allen Ginsberg
Joseph Heller
Fredric Jameson
Kevin Kelly
Jack Kerouac
Ken Kesey
Barbara Kingsolver
Raymond Kurzweil
Harper Lee
Ursula K. Le Guin
Norman Mailer
Arthur Miller
N. Scott Momaday
Toni Morrison
Tim O’Brien
Chuck Palahniuk
Sylvia Plath
Thomas Pynchon
Tom Robbins
Anne Sexton
Neal Stephenson
Amy Tan
Hunter S. Thompson
Alvin Toffler
Kurt Vonnegut
Alice Walker
Tennessee Williams
Tom Wolfe
Richard Wright