Research Assignment

Post date: Mar 25, 2015 2:31:41 PM

Mr. Shurtleff

AP Lit/Comp

Boardman High School

March 13. 2015

Congratulations, your application has been selected from the thousands of well written essays submitted for the thrilling, death-defying, stomach-turning, hair-graying, strangely gratifying, and overall stupendous experience of writing a senior research paper. What’s that? Don’t remember sending in an application? Well, you know that trick you use of having your parents sign a permission form when they aren’t paying attention? Well, it was something like that, only more insidious and involving hypnotic suggestion and several doses of Rohypnol slipped into your hot cocoa by your loving parents. But anyway, let’s get back to the essay. The task ahead of you is arduous and most likely, lives will be lost, but hey, you can’t make an omelet without the early bird killing two bushes with one stone. Or something like that. You will be required to research and discuss academically and with verve a topic found within the lofty and snappily well written pages of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Your essay topic must arise from the text,but does not necessarily have to mention the novel. After all, how many geneticists take the time to read Frankenstein? If they did, we wouldn’t have had that near miss in Hoboken last year when Dr. Johnston mistakenly re-sequenced Justin Bieber’s DNA with that of his Capuchen monkey. This process will be stretched over the several weeks, with a generous peppering of AP work to season things up. The dates that follow will be strictly adhered to. If you know you have an orchestra or band or chorus trip or some boring family vacation where you spend the whole time avoiding your parents and sneaking down to the beach to flirt with that worthless, fake-baked, bleach-blond, gum-smacking, guy or girl who tweets his or her every move because he or she has an over-inflated ego that you’re only talking to because you will know it will irritate your parents, then you may want to use something called time management and finish portions of your essay ahead of schedule. As soon as you see something that floats your boat, take it and run with it. Find your 15 sources in record time and impress your friends and parents. No, that guy or girl at the beach won’t care. After all, once he or she sees that your first sentence doesn’t contain OMG, LOL or stick figures, he or she will drop you like a sack of dictionaries and go talk to that vapid chick or dude from Fresno. Yes, the fake ginger with the facial piercings and tattoos. Yeah, that one.

Your sources must be from a periodical, book, or academic journal (don’t worry, I’ll show you where to find them, as they are not on Wikipedia, Twitter or Instagram). If you have any questions during this process, feel free to email me with your quandaries. I will be checking my email as fast as humanly possible.

Topics Due: Monday March 23, 2015

Prospectus/Five Sources/Quotes: Friday March 27, 2015

All Remaining Sources and Quotes: Wednesday April 1, 2015

Rough Draft: Monday April 13, 2015

Conferencing: Monday April 13-Wednesday April 15, 2015

Final Draft: Monday April 20- Wednesday April 22, 2015 Freedom!!! well, sort of.

**If you do not turn in your rough draft on time, do not expect me to edit it for corrections, as it will be taken as your final draft**

A Rubric explaining how you can be assured an A will follow. And as always, generous yet anonymous contributions to my numbered Swiss Bank account would not hurt either.