Chaucer Assignments 3, 4, 5

#3, Article Analysis DUE Wednesday, April 16th

3-4 Pages Long (that is, between 750-1200 words)

Please print out or photocopy the first page of the article and staple it to your analysis.

Please find an article on a subject or tale you find interesting. It should be at least 10 pages long, and, ideally, it should have been written within the last 20 years. The Online Chaucer Bibliography is a good place to look, but a more convenient place is the bibliography at the end of your Fisher and Allen Canterbury Tales edition.

You will need to use the library and its databases to track down the article.

The analysis should: a) summarize the argument (quote minimally: paraphrase demonstrates that you know what you're talking about); b) explain the significance of the article (you might ask: what is it arguing against? what is it arguing for? why is this important?); c) your own response to it. Note that section “c” is the place where you put your strong opinions about the article. Your response might be to point out places where the argument seemed shaky, but my preference would be to see you suggesting some ways in which the argument(s) in or the approach(es) of the article might be of further use. For example, a particular kind of reading of the Pardoner might suggest a new way to understand the Knight, or a set of facts regarding the Miller might suggest a route for research for understanding the Reeve and his Tale. Be as specific as you can! Please talk to me if you're stuck on this bit.

#4 Research Paper Questionnaire, Due Monday, April 28 (bring 5 COPIES to class for this assignment)

Take no more than two pages to answer these questions.

1.What is my topic? (alternately: what is my research question?)

2.What argument do I think I will make about this topic? You may want to consider the following questions in formulating your answer: What am I trying to demonstrate? What am I arguing against? What is the significance of what I am doing?

3.Why am I interested in this topic?

4.Provide a passage that illustrates or at least concerns your topic (6-12 lines of poetry).

5.Discuss briefly how this passage concerns your topic (3 or 4 sentences: a few more if you absolutely need them).

6.List or discuss three things you will need to know more about to do this project.

#5 Research Paper Prospectus, Due Monday, May 5th (bring 4 COPIES to class for this assignment)

One page, single-spaced (250-300 words)
A prospectus should have:
* a working title which clearly identifies the work(s) you will discuss and gives some indication of the topic you will explore and/or the thesis you will argue in your paper (a two-part title separated by a colon often does the trick nicely)
* State the research question (or questions)
* a fully articulated thesis, i.e., an explicit statement of the interpretation of your text(s) which you will argue in your paper (what you will argue about your topic, not just a statement of the topic itself) Suggest how you will organize the material in your essay. This is a kind of prose outline.

On a separate sheet, to be turned in only to me:

A properly formatted 8-item bibliography of relevant secondary sources (only published monographs, journal articles, book articles, and encyclopedia entries from specialist encyclopedias). Only two of the items can be from encyclopedias, and only one can be from a source that can be found exclusively on the Internet. All sources must be from scholarly literature. If you are uncertain about whether or not a source counts, ask me. The Bibliography must be correctly formatted according to either MLA or Chicago guidelines. I may ask you to do the bibliography again if you get it very wrong the first time. A few small hints: alphabetical order by author's last name and not numbered. Do not mix italics and underlines: choose one and stick to it. Academic journals that are consecutively numbered need only the volume number, not the issue number.

A brief summary or annotation of one of the most relevant of these sources. This summary will be 2-3 sentences long, accurate, objective (i.e., I don't want to know your opinion about it), and as thorough as possible. Let me know what it argues, not simply what its topic is. The summary must be of a different article than the one you discussed for your article analysis.