FINAL PROJECT PAPER AND PRESENTATION

Your final assignment will consist of two parts – a class presentation and a paper (prepared in I-Search format). These will consist of the same subjects, just presented in two different manners. This is a group project, so you are required to work with at least two classmates.

Assignment:	Choose any author from the text or another American author (to be approved by me), research the author, prepare a presentation for the class based upon your research, write up an I-Search paper based upon your research. Presentations will take place during the last week of class, so authors of note from the 20th century might be the best choices to fit within the course context; however, you are free to choose other authors, subject to my approval.
Information to Research:	Research and presentations should cover, at minimum, the following subjects: Biography of the author Discussion of major work(s) – not just a summary, but brief analysis Significance of author and/or work(s), both socially and historically – why are we still reading him/her? Literary period/era of the author and/or work(s); include brief discussion of the period and how or why the author/work fits into that period
Requirements:	It is suggested that each member of your group select one of the above subjects and work on that. Work should be done in groups of no larger than four, and preferably no smaller than three. Presentations should last no longer than 20 minutes. You are free to create any type of presentation you desire – PowerPoints are highly popular, but not required. All group members are required to participate in the class presentation.
Possible authors for consideration:

Mark Twain Henry James Stephen Crane Jack London Willa Cather Robert Frost Wallace Stevens William Carlos Williams T.S. Eliot Zora Neale Hurston F. Scott Fitzgerald William Faulkner Ernest Hemingway Langston Hughes John Steinbeck

Richard Wright Eudora Welty Ralph Ellison Kurt Vonnegut Flannery O'Connor Toni Morrison Philip Roth Thomas Pynchon Alice Walker Robert Penn Warren Robert Lowell Denise Levertov Allen Ginsberg Anne Sexton Sylvia Plath

Presentation Grading Rubric:	Student grades will be based on a collection of criteria.
	Knowledge of Information: How well do you know the material? You are not expected to memorize all the information, but you should not be reading the material from your notes/paper or from a PowerPoint. Breadth of Information: How much information are you presenting? Are you covering the important aspects of each section? Depth of Information: How much detail are you going into? Overall Presentation – How is the totality of the presentation? Is the presentation interesting? What audio/visual aids did you use?
	The above will be used in consideration of the overall group grade; everyone in the group will receive the same grade.

I-Search Paper Requirements