<p>The “Annotated Grapes” project asks you to do some preliminary research into the contexts of TGOW—the conditions and events to which it was responding and in which it was participating. Among other things, the work you do here may provide you with preliminary material for the final course paper, a critical analysis focusing (again) on The Grapes of Wrath in its social, historical, and ideological contexts. </p><p>With that in mind, you should try to settle on a topic that intrigues you enough to become the subject of a longer critical paper, as well, and to find a “text” (or texts) related to that topic that speaks to the novel in potentially interesting ways. (You might even begin thinking ahead about passages in the novel that pertain to this topic, too.) Still: if you ultimately decide that the research you did for this project isn’t suitable or you simply lose interest in it, you may change your topic before beginning the final paper. But obviously, you’ll be farther ahead if you don’t have to start from scratch.</p><p>So: here are some other potential topics (beyond the two I offered on the project spec sheet), culled from your last Informal Writing Assignment:</p><p> the Dust Bowl  the Great Depression  poverty and public assistance (“welfare,” “relief,” etc.) in the U.S. in the 1930s  migrant farm labor in the 1930s  migrants and migration generally, rates of migration to California, etc.  FDR and the New Deal  the FSA (Farm Security Administration) migrant worker camps  the reception of “Okies” in California in the 1930s/the image of “Okies” in local, state, and/or national media  the development of Route 66, the federal highway system, “road” culture, etc.  the state of agriculture in California in the 1930s;  the place of California generally in the American consciousness in the 1930s;  representations of/attitudes towards poverty in the 1930s;  “dialect” and status (and how these things are linked or perceived)  populism, regionalism and regional identity  the gendered division of labor in 1930s America  spousal abuse  role/prevalence of religion and/or evangelicalism in American life  banking/financial system, federal economic policy  intersections of race/ism, sex/ism, class/ism, esp. in rural white America  rise of industrial/corporate farming  agricultural practices that contributed to the Dust Bowl  ideas about/attitudes towards/trends in land ownership, family and/or tenant farming, sharecropping, corporate consolidation  specific policies that disenfranchised farmers and promoted urbanization  strength of/views about the “nuclear” family  employment figures, esp. in the blue-collar and migrant labor sector  wages and prices in the 1930s  prevailing views of wealth and the wealthy; income inequality  labor and labor unions; political radicalism  commercialization and cultural homogenization  public amenities/sanitation/public health  escapism and entertainment  minority/civil rights, panics over racial or class-based “uprisings,” etc.  earlier land rushes/land grabs, esp. in Oklahoma</p>