ENG 241 & 242 Assignment Playbook

Make sure you read the assignment instructions for the term paper for ENG 254, African-American Literature II.  Below are the main parameters:

• Choose a  novel to read
• Research the novel and its author
• Write a thesis statement about a particular aspect of a theme found in the novel
• Support this thesis with three or four main points and several quotations from the primary source (the novel) and from secondary sources
• Use 4 to 6 secondary sources
• The final draft should be 7 to 8 pages
• No web pages allowed
• The Works Cited page must include
  • the primary source (the novel)
  • 4 to 6 secondary sources
  • copies of all secondary sources attached to the Works Cited page on your final draft (if the source is long, only attach the page/s you quoted from)

1835-1865

• Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • The Blithedale Romance
  • The Marble Faun
• Herman Melville
  • Moby-Dick
  • Redburn
  • White-Jacket
• Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
• William Gilmore Simms
  • The Yemassee
  • The Partisan

1865-1917

• Henry James
  • Portrait of a Lady
• Mark Twain
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
  • The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
• Edith Wharton
  • The Age of Innocence
  • Summer
• Stephen Crane
  • The Red Badge of Courage
  • The Third Violet
• Frank Norris
  • The Pit
  • The Octopus
  • McTeague
• Jack London
  • The Sea Wolf
• Willa Cather
  • My Antonia
  • The Professor's House

1917-1945

• F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • This Side of Paradise
  • Tender is the Night
• Ernest Hemingway
  • The Old Man and the Sea
  • The Sun Also Rises
• Zora Neale Hurston
  • Jonah's Gourd Vine
  • Moses, Man of the Mountain
• John Steinbeck
  • Cannery Row
  • The Winter of Our Discontent
• William Faulkner
  • Light in August
  • As I Lay Dying
  • Sanctuary
• Richard Wright
  • Native Son

1945-2000

• Ralph Ellison
  • Invisible Man
• Alice Walker
  • Meridian
  • The Third Life of Grange Copeland
  • The Color Purple
• Jack Kerouac
  • On the Road
  • The Dharma Bums
• Toni Morrison
  • Song of Solomon
  • Sula
• Kurt Vonnegut
  • Cat's Cradle
  • Bluebeard
• Cormac McCarthy
  • Suttree
  • Blood Meridian
• Carson McCullers
  • The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• John Kennedy Toole
  • A Confederacy of Dunces
• Wallace Stegner
  • Angle of Repose

To find secondary sources for your paper, search the databases below:

Your sources must be cited in MLA style.