Description: Novel
High School Student #1
Project Proposal
Project Summary
For my project, I plan to write a historical fiction novel based on the mistreatment of women and the Baha’is-- a religious, highly persecuted minority in today’s Iranian society. This will be a long-term project focused on incorporating various social issues, such as gender roles, religious minorities, immigration, hegemony, ethnic identity, prejudice, and poverty, into my plot and characters.
I will prove my knowledge on this subject by incorporating these problems into the plotline-- my character is an adolescent refugee girl figuring out how to overcome these issues in her daily life, so my knowledge will be deep in order to apply it to a character and her opinions, morals, and ideals.
I believe this project will both hone my writing skills and allow me to study social issues and come up with resolutions more in-depth than I have in the past. In terms of help I will receive, I plan to have both Mr Coe, Mr Andrews, and my mother, a writer and editor herself, to proofread and generally edit, providing feedback. However, a lot of the story I will have to self-edit. I plan to keep my notes and progress open and accessible to anyone who is curious about my project, whether it be teacher or student.
In order to prove what I have learned, I will write a short reflection on my process once a month and will give a presentation upon the novel’s completion, covering both the reflections and the piece as a whole, to the teachers awarding me credit and whoever else is interested-- something a little bit like Academic Presentations, just a lot more in-depth.
I will also do a lot of background research on the history, geography, and cultural identity of Iran. I will also keep a list of vocabulary and thesaurus usage to prove my deepening of vocabulary.
Other things I will do for this project include actively reading a variety of historical fiction novels to gain insight on how authors integrate their characters and these events in history, and how to smooth out this process. I will also include a glossary with Persian cultural definitions (things like food, pet names in Farsi, major cities and mountain ranges, etc), along with a bibliography of my research and citations of what exactly I learned.
Project Readiness
In terms of readiness, I had already written a short story (around twenty pages) for Mr Andrew’s Global Issues class in January of 2014. (see attached work.) I plan to expand on the characters and plot, to make it a full-length novel. A length estimate would be hard to give, seeing as I haven’t started and it’s a long process, but anywhere between one and three hundred pages is a rough guess.
For academic classes pertaining to the subjects, I have taken four years with Mr Coe and have learned a variety of writing styles. I’ve pursued my own creative writing in my free time as well, but this is by far the largest project I’ve undertaken. Previous grades and test scores include everything from exceeding all OAKs reading tests since seventh grade, as well as the required state writing test for seventh grade. I have received scores as high as fives and sixes on the Six Traits of Writing consistently since that time as well. I was at a 12th grade reading level by the time I was 13, and have always been an avid reader and enjoy reading quite complicated things.
I will also have completed Mr Andrews’ Global Issues class by the time I aim to start working on this project, a wonderful discussions-based course where we talked about many of the issues I will incorporate into my story. This has given me a basic background and understanding of these issues, but I will have to research them from Iran’s political standpoint. The research project I am basing this off of got 100% and some good feedback. I’ve also taken AP Human Geography from Mr Andrews, where I got an A both semesters and a three on the exam as a freshman.
As I mentioned above, I’ve attached my twenty-page short story that I plan to expand on. Writing has always been something that has come naturally to me, so I am overjoyed at the prospect of working on a long-term project.
Detailed Project Description
Activities
Instead of taking my regular classes for this year, I will use the time most of my peers will be in AP Literature and AP Government and go work in a preferably quiet space, like the back of the classroom or possibly the library. I could have a completely different schedule, but it makes things a lot simpler if I work in a quiet space instead of having to rearrange whole schedules to accommodate me, that doesn’t seem fair. I may also try to meet around once a week with Mr Andrews to discuss editing, proofreading, etc.
In terms of how my “curriculum” will be set up, I’ve outlined a few key activities I will undertake every day.
Rough sketch on hours:
Estimated 250-300 total hours
Learning Objectives and Measures
I am hoping to gain credit for both English and Social Studies, seeing as this is both a fictional writing piece and a piece of art discussing and resolving social issues and problems the world is faced with today.
English Requirements
Social Studies Requirements
An example of my time log, updated daily:
Project Supports:
I have spoken to Mr Hazelton, Mr Andrews, Mr Coe, and my mother. Mr Andrews and Mr Coe, along with my mother, have all had experience writing before, so I’d like to have them edit my work. This will happen regularly, on a chapter-by-chapter basis. After completing the chapters, I will go over and edit the piece as a whole again.
In terms of funds or budgets, nothing is needed asides from copious amounts of caffeine and printer access to print various drafts etc. Most of my rough work will be done in a notebook, but I will be using a computer for finalized work. I’d also appreciate a quieter place to work, the library ideally, but that isn’t something I’m expecting to have happen.
My parents are supportive and enthusiastic of the idea.