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On the Family Migration Narrative

As you know, your ten-to-fifteen-page family migration narrative is an opportunity to relate migration in your family history to texts and issues in the course. In it, you may (a) write a fiction of your own based on some aspect of migration in your family history that is in intertextual relationship (thematically, structurally) with at least one of the literary, one of the historical, and one of the theoretical texts, (b) retell and analyze the meaning and significance of a story about migration often shared among your family members, using the literature, history, and criticism we've read to help you make sense of it, (c) do research on a specific migrant in your family history, the period in which he/she migrated, and the places he/she migrated from and to, and contextualize his/her migration in terms of the reasons for emigration, the experience of being an immigrant in America, or the legacy of that migration for your family; or (d) develop a topic of your own choice (with my approval).

For advice on a similar project for my undergraduate students in the sections of ENGL 209 (Novels and Tales) I'm teaching this semester (on migration narratives in world literature), click here. This assignment is a variation on that project in that it gives you more flexibility: where my undergraduates have to choose a migrant or migration in their family history, relate some aspect of the readings in the course to that migrant or migration, and reflect on how doing so has changed their view of migration in their family and in the course, you may take a creative approach (option a), a critical approach (option b), a historical approach (option c), or some other approach of your own design, including some combination of the previous options (option d).

One way to approach making this decision is to consider some of the key topics and issues in the course, to see if any relate to your own family history in a way you want to pursue further. Please see me if you want further advice on choosing an option and/or topic on this project, or e-mail me with your thoughts on possibilities for this project.


M A I N * N E W S * L I N K S * R E S E R V E S


ENGL 514: Comparative Approaches to Literature, Fall 2001
Created: 10/7/01 7:16 pm
Last modified: 10/7/01 7:16 pm