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Research Paper Assignment

Assignment Instructions:  Select 1 research option from the 4 listed below and write a 4-5 page paper that successfully examines the research prompt. Please include at least 2 secondary sources in your paper. 

Please choose 1 of the 4 options for your Research Paper:

1. Research the life of Zora Neale Hurston and examine the autobiographical aspects of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Use both primary and secondary sources to conduct your research.

2. During the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston wrote a number of plays for black vaudeville theater. Research her theatrical works and examine her use of dialogue and character development in Their Eyes Were Watching God in the context of her work as a playwright.

3. Research both feminist literary criticism and African-American literary criticism and present a persuasive paper arguing that Their Eyes Were Watching God is a better choice for inclusion in either a course on womens literature or a course on African-American literature.

4. When Tea Cake is sent to help bury the victims of the hurricane, he is told, on page 171, They makin coffins fuh all de white folks. Taint nothin but cheap pine, but dats bettern nothin. Dont dump white folks in de hole jus so.

Research the hurricane that hit West Palm Beach in 1928. How were white and black victims treated in the hurricanes aftermath? What has been done since then to memorialize the black victims of the hurricane? Compare the situation in 1928 to Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy. Is there still inequality in the way that people of different socioeconomic or racial groups are treated in the aftermath of a storm?

Source: Instructors’s Guide:Their Eyes Were Watching God

Be sure to use a minimum of 2 sources from literary criticism published by scholars that you incorporate and synthesize into your paper in order to support your assertions.  These may either be paraphrased or summarized.

Note: Spark Notes and Wikipedia do not count as secondary sources. The secondary sources need to be substantial sources that you draw from in order for them to count as credible scholarly secondary sources for this paper.

Excellent Resource: Please use the Literary Resource Center Data Bases in the Mission College Library to find support for your assertions.

MLA In-Text Citations and Works Cited Page:

It is imperative and a must that you give credit to each source that you use information from or else you are plagiarizing and will end up with a 0 on the assignment.

Please include a Works Cited Page with full citations (MLA format) for each source.                                                                                                                                                             

Length: 1000-1500 words