Topic Questions

Research Project
American Literature with Jason

Research Questions:
There is a confusion about the term “research question.” There are two definitions:
1. Research Question: the overarching question the research, as a whole, is attempting to
answer.
2. Research Questions: a series of questions the researcher attempts to answer in order to fill in
the details necessary to understand the subject.

Because this can be confusing, let’s call these Topic Questions

This project was designed with narrow parameters. Every student will be researching a
variation of the same questions. If you are still having a difficult time understanding our project,
your thesis will be about how a historical event/movement influenced the life a writer, with
details about at least one of that writer’s works.

Your topic questions will likely include (remember your 5w’s):

1. Details about the historical event.
2. Details about the author’s life.
3. Details about the author’s work.

For an 8-page paper, you can aim for 3 pages of history, 3 pages of biography, and 3 pages of
literary analysis. This will vary according to student and topic, but this is a good starting point.

Use this space to write down Topic Questions that you will answer. As you search the internet
for resources, collect the web address here. Collect your PDFs in your documents folders in
your Google Drive’s “Am Lit Research” folder.

Topic Questions