First Year Seminar/Section 19/Dr. Schell

Week 11-13 • America in 2001

Writing: 5 points. Presentation: 10 points.

Purpose. The purpose of this assignment is an opportunity for you to reflect on the year 2001 as a historical context for exemplary lives.  It is also a chance for you to work on your research skills and will require you to submit an annotated bibliography. You will be asked to work in small groups, researching a particular aspect of American culture. Your research will be the basis for your paper; each student must submit their own paper on a topic related to the group research project. Finally, you will make a group presentation on your topic during final exams.

Groups and topics. Louis Masur examines the year 1831 and the different lives and situations that comprise this eventful year. This assignment asks you to do the same for the year 2001, in American culture and society.

Stages and deadlines for project.

Stage 1: Research.  Meet with your assigned group and begin brainstorming about how you are going to tackle the project. Spend some time in the library doing research on your particular topic and share your research results with your group. At this stage, you are working as a group to figure out what happened in 2001 that pertains to your topic. Then, you may want to divvy up particular sub-topics for additional research and for writing your paper. Please send an email to the professor indicating who is going to work on which sub-topic. Email by Monday, November 14th.

Stage 2: Annotated bibliography. Decide on what the topic of your individual paper will be and prepare an annotated bibliography of at least 5 reputable sources. An annotated bibliography lists the sources, using full MLA citations, along with a short description of the source. Click here for information about how to prepare an annotated bibliography. You will be graded both on the quality of your sources as well as the proper formatting of the bibliography and the quality of the annotations. Due Wednesday, November 16th in class.

Stage 3: Paper.  Write a 5 page research paper on your topic, drawing upon your sources. Make sure to properly and thoroughly cite your sources, using MLA format (follow the details as spelled out in the Bedford Handbook). Each student must write their own paper on their own topic. The paper is due Tuesday, November 29th in class.

Stage 4: Presentation.  During the last two weeks of class, your group will combine with the groups from the learning community and as a large group you must create a presentation on your subject to present in front of the learning community on Tuesday, December 13th at 1pm. The presentation should be between 15-20 minutes in length and show evidence of contribution by all members of the group.