Assignment Description:

This assignment requires students to develop a research project on a specific issue related to our relationship with the natural world/ecosystem/flora and fauna. Your purpose in this assignment is to devise entirely your own argument about your chosen subject, using research sources to support your ideas. Thus this assignment requires that you present a clear, informed position on one specific aspect of the choices we've made about our connection to nature. This assignment extends the previous assignment by asking you to work with more sources and to develop a more complex argument in response to an academic debate.

Assignment Goals:

Elisabeth Tova Bailey in The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating raises important questions about our relationship with the natural world. How do we connect to other creatures? Why is this important? Other writers we've discussed have looked at human action and our effect on the environment. As you wrestle with these questions, be aware that this assignment has several goals.

To succeed with this assignment, you should demonstrate that you are able:

to research a topic to find both facts and ideas

to find and incorporate appropriate academic sources, to use those sources critically, and to summarize the arguments being made in those sources concisely

to describe how these academic sources contribute to a larger academic conversation on a topic,

to develop your own argument within that debate

to articulate your original argument in a clear thesis statement, and to develop the ideas of that argument throughout the essay

to choose evidence that is both relevant and compelling in support of that argument

Academic research and the research proposal:

Remember that the academic research paper has a more narrow focus than direct academic research. In the humanities (which includes English and therefore this class), the academic research paper involves citing the ideas of other scholars while making an argument of your own. This means that you must create an argument that takes into account the existing academic conversation on the importance of our relationship with the natural world, while inserting your own argument into that debate.

Concentrate on creating a complex argument. You are not writing a report of facts you have found, nor an overly-simplified opinion piece. You must have something to say that other scholars could reasonably disagree with, and what you say must be nuanced and complex.

Requirements:

5 or more pages, not including a Works Cited page

You must use at least five academic sources, one of those must be "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating"

MLA Style is required for all in-text citations and the Works.