What Is the Voice of America? What Does It Mean to Be American?

American Literature: Independent Research Project

What is the voice of America? What does it mean to be American? You will develop your own topic and research it, developing a thesis statement and thoroughly supporting it in a research paper. Your paper must somehow reflect the voice of America or what it means to be American.

Assignment Details: Requirements & Deadlines

This research project allows you to select a topic of your choice, but you must show how that topic reflects American values, ideas, perspective, or voice. For example, if you are interested in music, you might look at a particular genre, like rock, and explain how it is the voice of America. You would first identify traits of rock that also define American traits, such as freedom of speech, self-expression, Topic: rebellion, etc. Next, for each trait you would first prove how it reflects Americans in general and then focus on how rock epitomizes it. Specific bands and songs would provide your support. Examples of other topics students have chosen in the past: sports, Hollywood, fast-food, education, Yoga, and family. I can assist you in developing ideas, but only once you’ve selected a general topic. The key is to pick something that genuinely interests you.

Your thesis statement must be an arguable opinion about how your topic represents America, based Thesis: on what you have learned through your research. It must also be supportable, using the published words of experts in the field.

You must use at least 5 different cited sources, including at least one database article (http://studygrounds.pbworks.com/Databases) and at least one reliable internet source. (You must use at least one quotation from each source.) Sources: Your preliminary research must be documented in an annotated bibliography, which you will turn in with your final topic and proposed thesis statement. You will get this back that day in order to continue with your research and the actual writing of the paper.

In order to thoroughly address the topic, your final paper should consist of 5-7 pages (excluding the Length: Works Cited page), typed in MLA format with properly cited quotations.

Preliminary topic of choice: Final topic, preliminary thesis, and outline Deadlines: Annotated bibliography 1st draft Final draft (with attached 1st draft)—revisions are necessary!

 Summarizing books, songs, articles, etc. You may have to summarize an author’s opinion to give your own ideas support, but you may not simply fill up space on the page by summarizing plot or rewriting the lyrics for an entire song.  Developing a thesis statement that is factual and not arguable. There’s no point in researching that. Avoid:  Developing a thesis statement that can only be supported with your opinion. That won’t fulfill the requirements because you won’t have completed any research.  Researching a particular person or event, unless you are specifically focusing on the literature or media response that resulted. This is not biographical or basic historical fact research.  Choosing a topic that you think you know a lot about, because it will be too tempting for you to rely on your own knowledge and not search for academic support for your ideas.

Ms. Mason—American Literature Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography is a documentation and brief summary of the primary sources used while doing research. It includes the work cited information and an overview of the work. Even if you do not include these works in your final draft, this process will help keep you organized and help you keep your sources straight, particularly when you are looking at multiple sources on the same topic. For this reason, you need to include enough information about the article/book/movie/song in order to differentiate it from other, similar sources.

You may keep your annotated bibliography electronically, on notecards, or on binder paper. As you eliminate potential sources, you should move them to the bottom of your pile or otherwise cross them out/delete them.

The following citations* are examples:

Bright Lights, Big City. Screenplay by Jay McInerney. Dir. James Bridges. Perf. Michael J. Fox. Los

Angeles: United Artists, 1998. Film. The late 1980s film depicts the life of a drug abusing facts

checker at a New York magazine showing his downward spiral and redemption.

Etheridge, Melissa. “Nowhere to Go.” Your Little Secret. New York: Island, 1996. CD. This song

comments on the current state of the American dream in the 1990s—a feeling of alienation and

letting go of popular American notions and stereotypes.

Hughes, Langston. “I, Too.” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Knopf, 1994. Print. In

the Harlem Renaissance poem, the speaker demands that he, as well as other African Americans,

be recognized as vital members of American society.

“Shakespeare Resources.” University of Virginia Library. University of Virginia, n.d. Web. 12 June 2009.

This site contains a number of links and provides online versions of many of Shakespeare’s works.

*Take note of the changes in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook.

Ms. Mason—American Literature