After reading the selections from Lessons 2 and 3, choose one of the following topics to find out more about, and write a clearly developed and well-formed research paper on your chosen topic.
How did a diversity of views transform American society?
Provide research in addition to your own analysis of some of the texts from lesson 2 such as “American Jezebel,” “Repeal the Stamp Act!” and “Declaration of Independence.”
What ideas from the text reveal answers to the question? Use both outside sources and textual evidence from the selections in the course to develop your essay.
Past literary movements continue to be influential. Consider romanticism, realism, and modernism. How influential were ideas from those periods?
Is that influence clearly seen in the texts you have read? Explain with textual evidence from both outside sources as well as from any of the stories from lesson 3.
Research and discuss this idea of money, status, and marriage during any periods you read about in lesson 3.
Explain ideas from any of those periods, using both outside sources and ideas from the texts from lesson 3 such as Pride & Prejudice, After the Ball, and The Glass Menagerie.
What were some of the social classes of this time? What problems were caused because of classism? Do we experience classism still today?
How is that reflected in our society compared to how it was during any of those periods?
Consider the types of jobs available to people, depending on social classes during that time.
How do jobs nowadays reflect one’s social status?
Research and discuss the role of women historically and present. What were some of the abuses of women? Consider the role women play in today’s society, are they still subject to similar abuse?
Use ideas from the stories you have read in this course as well as from outside sources for support in analyzing women historically and present.
