Topicsfor Major Research Essay
These topics cover the entire course. Please look them over and select one that interests you for your major research essay… See Syllabus for details like using the MLA formatting, DOUBLE SPACING, Internal Citations, etc.
The essay is submitted through SafeAssign. Ideally, there should be no more than a 25% match up with existing essays in the SafeAssign database. Essays with 60%, 70% or more matching existing essays will be considered a COPY AND PASTE effort and cannot receive a grade higher than a 50 out of a possible 100 points.
Be sure your essay contains an appropriate introduction (mentioning all topics to be discussed in the body of the paper), a well-developed and supported body, and a fitting conclusion to the essay.
1) Using the textbook, notes, and online research, describe either the achievements of the Aztec Empire or the Taino/Arawack speaking cultures before the entry of European explorers.
2) Citing William Bradford, discuss the reasons for the Separatists’ coming to the American colonies from the Netherlands and Great Britain and the obstacles they faced the first winter in the New World.
3) Citing Thomas Paine, using both “Common Sense,” and/or “The Crisis,” discuss the major grievances and ideological climate of the American colonies leading up to the actual outbreak of the Revolutionary War, i.e. the War of American Independence.
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4) Citing Anne Bradstreet, discuss her attitudes toward religious faith and the legacy she hoped to leave her children.
5) Citing the writings of Olaudah Equiano and Bartolome’ de las Casas, discuss the brutal treatment of slaves, both native and African.
6) Using William Byrd II’s Secret Diary as a basis, discuss the routine elements in a person’s everyday life.Empasize the responsibilities of an agrarian aristocrat, such as Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.
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7) Choosing 4 or 5 of Benjamin Franklin’s maxims from “The Way to Wealth,” discuss them in the context of modern living today.
8) Mary Rowlandson founded the genre known as the “Indian captivities.” Discuss her changing attitudes in her many “removes” toward the natives who captured her in February 1675. You may also mention the tradition in LAST OF THE MOHICANS or DANCES WITH WOLVES..
9) Pick four poems by Phillis Wheatley, and discuss them in terms of her religious beliefs. Do not include more than a brief mention of her biographical history.
10) Using the various disguises the Trickster can use, cite contemporary instances of the Trickster in modern culture. Some examples may be Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, hypocritical public leaders, Tyler Perry, Robin Williams, and others.
11. Using the Cherokee Memorials, discuss the main points and objections that the Cherokee make to retain their sovereignty.
12. Using the short stories, “Rip Van Winkle,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” discuss the various authors’ use of irony in these stories.
13. Using Longfellow’s “The Psalm of Life,” discuss the nineteenth century’s optimism as it appears in this poem.
14. Discuss, in detail, at least three of Thoreau’s arguments against the constant “busy -ness” of his time as they appear in “Life without Principle.”
15. Discuss the phenomenon of evil in the human heart as it appears in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Young Goodman Brown.”
16. Discuss the numerous instances of Emerson’s comments on travel and society as they appear in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.”
17. Citing William Apes, discuss his Bible based arguments against racism.
18. Using these words of the Devil in “Young Goodman Brown,” find modern examples of three of the sins that the Devil outlines in his speech to the coven: “This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds; how hoary-bearded (white bearded) elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widow’s weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime, and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their father’s wealth; and how fair damsels ” blush not, sweet ones! — have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant’s funeral.” Explore current/recently in the news examples of these “sins.”
19. Discuss at least three arguments that Margaret Fuller makes for the equal treatment of women in the society of her day.
20. Compare or contrast the rhetorical styles of Margaret Fuller and Frederick Douglass. Be sure to quote the writer’s own words when citing examples.
21. Discuss the characters of Haley, Shelby, Aunt Chloe, Eliza, Tom and Sam as they appear in the assigned portion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
22. Using Melville’s “Battle Pieces,” most specifically, the “Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,” discuss Melville’s predictions about modern warfare. Be sure to include today’s military practices that confirm Melville’s view of what war was to become. You may even discuss uniforms, since they are referenced in the poem/s.
23. Using “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” discuss the elegiac form in general, and discuss specifically the recurring images that Whitman establishes in the opening stanzas.
24. Using Uncle Tom’s Cabin as the basis, discuss the two great modern critical objections to the novel: its sentimentality and the intrusive narrator’s/writer’s voice.