Choose one of the five authors on the course syllabus, and write a prospectus of no more than 300 words for an essay about their work. A prospectus is a proposal and an outline for your research paper, composed in full sentences and paragraphs. (This prospectus will likely have two paragraphs, but no more than three.) Begin by stating your topic – who and what is your essay going to be about? (Think about what you might title your proposed paper, as a kind of shorthand for its main idea.) Then try to state your argument or thesis: what are you going to assert or argue about the topic you have chosen? What do you want to prove to your reader? Can you name your own critical perspective? (Is this a formal analysis? A historical reading? A psychological reading? An interpretation centred on genre? Are you interested in gender politics? Social power and agency? Nationalism? Decolonization? Family?) Then, describe the stages or steps that your argument will take. What aspects of the text(s) in question will you engage with or analyze? How do you intend to do this? Remember that this is a proposal in which you’re imagining what you will do and what shape it will take. This may also be the paper that you intend to write for the final assignment for this course, and so you are attempting to frame and to describe your intentions and possible outcomes. Finally, what scholarly or critical works will you converse or debate with? The prospectus can be thought of in conjunction with the annotated bibliography, and the two assignments can be undertaken simultaneously. Try to define your place in the discussion and criticism that surround the work you’ve chosen to discuss.

Due in class on Monday, October 31, 2016.