The Persuasive Research Paper
The state of Colorado believes that all high school juniors ought to be able to write persuasively using support through research. What that means for you is that for the majority of this semester you will be completing pieces of the puzzle of writing a persuasive research paper. Next year, you will have to complete all or most of these steps without the aid of your teacher, so enjoy it while you got it.
You will not be graded on a subsequent assignment until the previous assignment is in. That means that the Annotated Works Cited will not be graded as on time, if the Thesis Statement Worksheet is still missing.
DATE
Essay Assigned ______
* Identifying Themes & Controversies Worksheet ______
* Thesis Statement Worksheet ______
Plagiarism and Research Techniques (with Mrs. Graham) ______
Library / Lab ______
* Annotated Works Cited ______
Library / Lab ______
* Outline ______
* Abstract ______
* Rough Draft ______
Library / Lab ______
* Final Research Paper ______
* - graded material
The final paper is always due after Spring Break, but I always accept the paper the Friday before Spring Break Week for 10% Extra Credit on the paper. This is not like my other extra credit that you must wait for; this is applied to the paper itself regardless of missing work. I do hope some of you decide to take advantage of this opportunity.
We will work on the research paper in class as time provides, but a large portion of the work (the research and the writing) must be done independently. Do not assume that you will have time to work on this in my class, or anyone else’s for that matter.
The remainder of this packet contains the actual research topic, exercises and worksheets that you need to get started, guides for an Annotated Works Cited, a paper outline, and a paper abstract, and even tips for in-text and parenthetical citations. Consider part of your daily supplies and never leave this packet in your locker. You never know when it will be useful (hint, hint…).
Censorship in the Classroom
The novels of American literature have faced some interesting trials. To Kill a Mockingbird is said to be in appropriate because it contains “profanity” and “contains adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, and incest.” Popular tween writer Judy Blume has even had some of her titles questioned for appropriateness. Many parents, students, and scholars debate whether Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is an appropriate book to read in high school. Some people say that the language and subject of the novel should be “left behind” in history—the novel should be banned as it is not appropriate for young adults. Others argue that the novel captures a part of US history that should not be forgotten because of the lessons we can learn from it, and they say that the novel actually shows that human dignity is a right we all should have, regardless of race, creed, background, etc.
Subject: English III American Literature
Objectives: Students will:
· formulate a clear thesis
· logically group and sequence ideas
· practice research skills: evaluating sources, citing sources
Standards: READING AND WRITING
1. Students read and understand a variety of materials.
2. Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
3. Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
4. Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.
5. Students read to locate, select, and make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference, and technological sources.
6. Students read and recognize literature as a record of human experience.
Guidelines:
Formal essay
MLA formatted paper with works cited
3-5 pages
Integrated Quotations
Do not use I, we, me, us, you, the reader, one, etc.
Intro, body, conclusion
Pre-write, rough draft, final draft
Essential Question: What is the purpose & value of controversial American literature?
Assignment: The purpose of this assignment is to answer the essential question while navigating your way through the research process. To discuss the purpose & value of an American novel, you must discuss one of the following themes: The American Dream, the American Journey, & the American Hero. As we read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in class, you will read independently another challenged or banned novel. Once you’ve read your independent novel, you must select one of the common American themes that you see in both pieces of literature and explain how the authors represent that theme. You will also determine a common controversial element in both novels which caused the novels to be challenged or banned. These two decisions will guide the persuasive/analytical research essay that you will be writing. Next, you will begin your research. Addressing the element of censorship, you will gather information from a variety of sources that explains the controversy. You will include this information in your essay along with quotations from both novels that illustrate the controversy. Your essay must include quotations from Huck Finn, the independent novel and your research. Your conclusion will address the essential question and how it relates to the literature, and will explain why all of this information is important.
Identifying Theme & Controversies
Theme: The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work. The theme is a statement or vision which the writer wants to share about the subject.
One of the many values of reading American literature is to identify how different authors portray the three themes of the American dream, journey or hero. How are these themes typically portrayed in American Literature? ______
______
______
______
As you read Huck Finn, you read with a purpose—to identify how Twain portrayed one of the three themes. (HF reading journal) You read to identify the same theme in your independent novel. (Independent Novel reading journal).
What theme will you focus on for this paper? ______
List two ways your independent novel portrayed the above theme & how it compares with Twain’s portrayal:
______
______
______
______
Controversial Reasons for Banning Books: Incessant use of racial slurs including the "n" word; use of profanity throughout; portrayal of relationship between characters; portrayal of events like prostitution, depression, and alienation; disrespect children show to adults, the confusion of combining fantasy with reality; use of profanity, sexuality, racial slurs, and excessive violence; use of the Lord's name in vain; explicit sexuality, profanity, violence, and use of drugs; use of witchcraft and the fear that fantasy and reality could become confused for children; sexual references, and unsuitability for students.
What controversy will you focus on for this paper? ______
How does the common controversy in both novels add to your understanding of the theme?
______
______
______
The Socratic Seminar
“Socrates, a Classical Greek philosopher, was convinced that the surest way to attain reliable knowledge was through the practice of disciplined conversation. He called this method dialectic, meaning the art or practice of examining opinions or ideas logically, often by the method of question and answer, so as to determine their validity.” (AVID Socratic Seminars)
What is “disciplined conversation”? ______
______
______
Define: Divergent ______
Convergent ______
What are the advantages of being “divergent rather than convergent”? ______
______
______
What is the purpose of a Socratic Seminar and what is it not? ______
______
______
What are the three stages of a Socratic Seminar?
1. ______2. ______3. ______
Why are asking questions so important? ______
______
______
______
Con-censorship
OPINION: Effort to sanitize Twain is pure insanity
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Tony Norman
Jan. 07--As a society, we've decided that there's nothing more offensive when it comes to educating our young than an unexpurgated look at what it means to be an American.
In 1884, Samuel Clemens, a cultural DJ who went by the pen name "Mark Twain," dropped some terrifying science about American life called "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade)."
It is a thematically ambitious novel with a problematic narrative structure, but no one has ever written a better satire or a more truthful account of race and class in America. It is a magnificent picaresque, featuring bountiful dollops of grace and grotesquery, that continues to resonate with those brave enough to actually read it.
The novel also features 219 appearances of the word "nigger," resulting in its forced exile to the margins of the high school curriculum in recent years.
Next month, a new edition of "Huckleberry Finn" that substitutes the word "slave" for the racist epithet will be published. "Injun" has also been removed in keeping with the mission of shielding young minds from any knowledge of America's racist past and self-deceptive present.
In a misguided attempt to rescue the novel from those who stupidly accuse it of racism, its editor, Auburn University professor Alan Gribben, has rendered it linguistically and morally incoherent.
Huck, the novel's adolescent narrator, is the illiterate son of a violent backwoods drunk. Fleeing exploitation by his shiftless father, Huck and his newfound companion, Jim, a runaway slave, escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. The story takes place in the 1840s, decades before the Civil War.
Like most 19th century Americans, Huck believes whites are superior to blacks, so he initially feels guilty helping Miss Watson's "property" escape to freedom. He lives in a world where racism is the basis for American exceptionalism.
Once free, Jim's plan is to return to Missouri to rescue his wife and children. His growth from runaway property to full human in Huck's eyes provides the novel with its moral center.
The novel is famous both for its use of negro dialect and the unrefined tongue of Missouri's white working class. Every character sounds like Stepin Fetchit, which continually mystifies readers who assume blacks and whites are culturally distinct.
Despite its resemblance to a child's adventure story, "Huckleberry Finn" is a dagger to the heart of white privilege and its all-pervasive cultural assumptions. That's why the racists of Twain's time despised the book. They knew it was a veiled attack. We're too culturally self-absorbed to see what was obvious to them. We're so hung up on a word we miss the liberating speeches.
In many ways, the sanitized "Huckleberry Finn" is the flip side of the recent controversy over Virginia's school textbooks that reported two battalions of black soldiers fought for the Confederacy. That was a lie concocted to protect white Southern self-esteem by making secession look less like an attempt to preserve slavery.
Who is the intended audience for a sanitized version of "Huckleberry Finn?" Is it the 30 percent to 70 percent of black students who'll drop out of inner city public schools this year? I doubt it. If they're reading anything, it's garish urban fiction featuring the epithet in every conceivable iteration.
Is it to spare the delicate sensibilities of the black kids who remain? Unless those kids are also shielded from corporate-owned black popular culture, the epithet will be impossible to dodge outside the classroom.
Removing "nigger" from the pages of one of our most prophetic and subversive novels creates a space for even more glibness and self-deception by preserving the conceit that we're a society that doesn't "see" color.
Twain once described "Huckleberry Finn" as "a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat."
It holds a mirror to our times just as it did Twain's. Like the novel's original audience, we're a society that has subconsciously internalized racist assumptions and values, whether we acknowledge it or not.
"Huckleberry Finn" is a book about a racist who tried to grow up in the American wilderness. The best many of us can ever hope to be is as good as Huck. What's the point of trying to blunt such a two-edged sword?
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Pro-censorship
School urged to remove `Huckleberry Finn' from curriculum
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By Dan Wascoe
MINNEAPOLIS _ Ken Gilbert read the story of Huckleberry Finn in the late 1960s in a segregated black North Carolina school, but he doesn't remember much about Huck's adventures and the book's status as an American classic.
What he does remember is class discussions of the "N-word." Mark Twain used it over and over.
"Why were there so many usages of the same word?" he said. "We never got to the story line. It was the racial issue."
When daughter Nia was assigned to read it in her 10th-grade honors class, his memories of a racially volatile childhood came surging back.
Now Gilbert and his wife, Sylvia, are reviving a century-old debate by asking St. Louis Park High to remove the novel from the required-reading list.