Writing Assignment #6: American Author Proposal

Date introduced: 1/14
Date due: 1/24-25

Put careful thought into your proposal. You will be spending a significant amount of time with your author; you need to feel passionate about this.

Your proposal must address the following questions:

What draws you to this writer?
How does your proposed author meet the criteria for the American Author project? (Criteria listed below.) Why do you feel your author is important?
How well will this author’s work enable you to make a literary, thesis-based argument over the course of a ten-page paper?
At this point, which titles by this author do you plan on reading to meet the requirements listed below? In what order do you plan on reading them, and why? (You can change your mind later, but you need a preliminary plan.)

In choosing an author, you must observe these guidelines:

The writer must be an American. (Which is, of course, open to interpretation. What does it mean to be an American?—this is an essential question of the whole course. You may discover your answer in this project.)
The writer must be a prose writer or dramatist. Writers who are primarily poets do not qualify (we’ll look at poets more closely next year). Fiction and non-fiction are equally acceptable.
The writer must have a substantial body of work, one that allows you to meet the reading requirements listed below. “One-hit wonders” will not qualify.
The writer must be widely regarded as important to the development of American literature (also open to interpretation).

The independent reading requirements are the following:

At least three average-length novels or plays, or the equivalent in shorter works, short stories, or essays. 200 pages is considered average-length. (Books we have read together in class do not count.)
One biography on the author’s life, or, for a contemporary author for whom there is no biography, a collection of book reviews
At least two articles of literary criticism on the author

Posted by Justin Wells : 01/14/2008