Final Research Project FAQ
As you know, you have two options for your final research project in my sections of Novels and Tales--a Family/Community Migration Narrative Project and a Photograph Research/Creative Writing Project. This page is devoted to answering people's questions about these projects. If you have suggestions for improving this page further, please contact me directly.
Family/Community Migration Narrative Project
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Q: What is the family project's main focus? Is it supposed to be about when our family came to the U.S.? Or should it be about after they had arrived?
A: As the assignment sheet states, the focus of your project is up to you. You should choose a migration narrative from your family or community that you feel best allows you to make comparisons and connections to what we've been reading in the class. So when thinking about which family migration narrative to focus on in the project, you might think about what themes, issues, characters, and so on from what you've been reading have interested you the most--and use that brainstorming to help you focus your narrative. The questions you ask are excellent possibilities for finding a focus: some people might want to focus on the issue of what caused an ancestor to migrate (or the migrating ancestor's motivations), others might want to focus on the adjustment period upon arrival to the U.S. and the politics of assimilation or acculturation, others might want to make a non-issue-based comparison. I think it would be counterproductive for me to limit your options for the focus of your family migration project by saying that one kind of migration is automatically better to focus on than another.
Now, if you want advice on making the decision of what story to focus on and on finding connections between stories you're finding out about and ones you've read about, feel free to make an appointment to see me during the month of October, before the polished proposal is due.
Q: After reading the assignment sheet, I am still a little confused over the family project. Should the narrative be a journalistic style (Sebald), or more of a very slightly fictionalized true story? (Naipaul) Is it better to intersperse the comparisons with the story, or is it better to do it as an almost separate essay attached to the narrative? Can the "family migration narrative" part be told in any form we choose?
A: These are excellent questions, but only you can answer them because the answer to the last question is "yes." There is no cursed or magic structure out there. The mode of organization you choose to go with, however, should relate intimately to the point you want your project to make. If, when grading, I can't figure out why you organized your piece as you did, and how the form relates to the content, then you will get a lower grade than someone who clearly is making thoughtful choices about how to relate a migration or migration narrative from her family to issue(s)/theme(s)/character(s) in works we've read in the course. Now, to address the first two questions more directly, let me first caution that these questions can't be answered in general. You have to choose a form and a structure for both your projects that you feel best conveys the points you want to make. I can imagine excellent projects that choose one or the other of the models listed above, or invent one of their own. Even a question as simple as "Can I use 'I' in these projects?" is actually quite complex. Where do you want to place yourself in your family/community migration project? Do you want to foreground your role as "detective"/"explorer"/"historian," your activities in tracking down the "story" and in figuring out how to relate it to other issues, and in reflecting on the significance of these relations, as Ghosh, Sebald, and Naipaul do? Or do you want to write a more traditional kind of "comparison and contrast" essay in which you emphasize the connections between what you discovered about migrations in your family, and de-emphasize the process of discovery, and save the reflections for the "conclusion"? Both could work well. I'd rather leave questions like this hanging for now, rather than say, "I can't imagine this way working" or "If you use this structure, you'll automatically get an A."
So just keep in mind that your main task in this project is comparative--your goal should be (1) to find or make connections (which include both similarities and differences) between the issues we've been noticing in the works of fiction we've been reading in the course and the actual migration narrative(s) from your family or community that you are finding out about, and (2) to reflect on how those connections you've discovered or created put your family or community's history in a new light, or on how the process of finding/choosing a family story and making connections between it and what we've read makes you think about your relation to your family history. So when thinking about what to focus on in your family or community's history of and stories about migration, you should always keep in mind that the final form of the project will be some sort of comparative/reflective essay or web site.
I am happy to consult with you both pre- and post-Thanksgiving break as you face choices of what form to put your projects in. But my advice is going to differ for each person, and it's only that--advice. The choice of how to meet those criteria is yours. I know it's a responsibility, but it's also a freedom--take advantage of it!
Q: Is this project supposed to include a true story with true facts?
A: This is a very interesting question. It would be great if you were able to find out every fact about an ancestor's migration and find an answer to every question you had while piecing together the narrative. That would make your comparison and reflection very interesting, because it would involve trying to find connections between a factual and a fictional migration narrative (or narratives). But not everyone's going to be able to track down every fact and get every question answered--a prominent theme, you'll notice, in Naipaul, Ghosh, and Sebald. So what, then, do you do if your sources are relying on inference, speculation, even guesswork to fill the gaps in the story, or have simply forgotten key facts and context? Well, you can make this the subject of your analysis and reflection. You could compare the process you're going through to the process Naipaul, or Ghosh, or Sebald seem to have gone through. You could analyze the "shape" of the gaps in the story and how your family attempts to fill them--or why they don't. What I recommend against doing, however, is presenting as factual a story from your family you know if fictional; that is, don't just fill the gaps in the story with your own inventions. If you do research to help you fill the gaps (see below), you are free to make inferences, speculations, and guesses about what really happened, but if you do so, present them in that light--not as incontrovertible facts.
Q: Is any research required for this project?
A: Yes. There are two kinds of research I expect you to do for this option. First, you need to do some informal research into the history of migrations in your family or community in order to find possible migration narratives to share/compare/reflect on and to help you choose one in particular as the focus of your comparative/reflective experimental essay or web site. Second, you need to do some more formal research into the history of the migration your ancestor participated in, to help you figure out how an ancestor's migration (the departure and the arrival) was affected or informed by larger social, economic, and cultural institutions, forces, and patterns. For instance, you might be able to find a connection to a particular issue or theme in what we've been reading if you are able to contextualize a migration narrative from your family or community. Doing this kind of secondary research can thus help you make comparisons between migrations in your family or community and migrations in the texts we've been reading--or reflect on the significance of those connections or relations you discover.
One of the nicest things about the influence of pluralism on the twentieth-century U.S. academy and media is that there is a wealth of studies of immigration to this country, of the reasons people emigrated from their home countries or migrated within the U.S., of the issues they faced during the voyage and upon arrival in the U.S. The links page for this course and for my graduate course on American Migration Narratives, the reserves page for this course and for my graduate course on American Migration Narratives, and the library's web site (especially its on-line databases page, which can link you through FirstSearch to WorldCat, a database that allows you to search the holdings of hundreds of research libraries and request books you want through inter-library loan over the web) can be very helpful if you want to find out more about the time period in which the subject of your family/community migration narrative left his or her country and/or arrived in the U.S. You should always feel free to seek out a reference librarian or come see me for advice, as well. If I can't answer your question, I can point you toward professors in the History, Sociology, and English departments here who may be better able to do so, as well.
If you are interested in questions of family history and genealogy, you might start with the following web sites:
In addition, the reference librarians at Reed Library have a pamphlet that can point you to further print and on-line genealogical and other sources.
Remember, people who go above and beyond the call of duty on this project will not only get a good grade on the project alone, but also get a higher preparation/participation grade than they otherwise would have gotten. A little bit of research can go a long way to being able to come up with connections and relations between your family migration narrative and the fictional migration narratives we've been reading in the course.
Q: I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with connections between my family migration narrative and the ones we've been reading in the course. Help!
A: When thinking about comparisons to the literature we have been reading, it might help to think on three different levels; we might call them: 1) specific; 2) abstract; 3) universal. A good comparative analysis should be able to make connections on at least two of these levels.
Photograph Research/Creative Writing Project
Back to Family Project
Q: How am I supposed to find out where and when my picture is from if I didn't copy that information out of the booklet accompanying the Salgado book that got itself lost or stolen?
A: Well, the time question is easy--just about all the photos come from the 1990s. As for the place, the first step is to see if I have a copy of the pages from the missing information booklet that refer to your photo; thus far, I have information on photos from pp. 22-47, 62-73, 118-172, 263-275, 294-309 in Salgado's book. If not, you can find out from the context of the book itself (significant details within the photo, where photos near it in the book seem to be from, what chapter it's in, what the introduction says about the way the book is organized) where the photo was taken. You can ask your classmates on the listserv or in class if they have information on pictures close to yours in the Salgado book that can help you narrow down the possibilities. You can ask professors in History or Anthropology or Political Science or Sociology if they recognize where the photo might be from. However, it might be quickest, though, to check out the following website on
Salgado's photography, to see if your photograph--and a caption with the key information you're looking for--is included on the site.
Q: How are we supposed to begin our research after we have gotten down the basic facts of where and when and what is being portrayed in the photo? Where do we start?
A: The most useful places to start are the reserve readings for our course and for my graduate course on American Migration Narratives in Reed Library and the links page on this course web site and for my graduate course on American Migration Narratives (each of which has a wealth of research sites on it). Another incredibly useful web site is Reed Library's on-line databases page. From there, you can get into FirstSearch, which allows you access to WorldCat, a database of the holdings of research libraries across the country. You can also get into Lexis-Nexis, which is an amazing full-text database of recent newspaper and magazine articles from around the world, and Ethnic NewsWatch, which focuses on magazines and journals not typically included in Lexis-Nexis. The best search engine for finding relevant web sites on the migration you're researching is google.com. For all these search engines and databases, you have to get good at using keywords to broaden and narrow your search as needed.
Q: So what am I supposed to be looking for when I'm doing this research? How much research is required?
A: Good questions. On the first: you have to develop your own process for this project, but two approaches seem fundamental. One is to learn a bit about the social/political context of the migration and migrants depicted in your photo: why are they on the move? what might their motivations and goals be? what kinds of forces, conditions, and institutions can be said to be causing this migration? where are they going to? what do they hope to find? You'll probably find that different sources give different answers to these questions, just as different books might have different theories to explain and account for the migration. This is good. It means that you can see begin to see what's at stake in the choices you make about what kind of story to tell. The second approach is to be able to put the migration you're researching in historical context. What kinds of migrations has this region seen in the past? Try to find a source that allows you to go as far back in history as possible. How might the migration you're focusing on relate to prior migrations? How have people tried to relate the present-day migration to past ones? To sum up, think of all the questions that have arisen for you as you've read the migration narratives in the course--and that the photo itself raises for you. You want to be in a position to make choices about which of these questions you want to answer (and in what way) in your story--and which you want to only hint at, or remain silent on.
On the second question: how much research you do is dependent on how you expect it to play into your story. Everyone should do at least the minimal research of finding one book with some historical sweep, a few articles that give social context for the migration you're interested in, and one or two really good web sites. How much more than that you do is dependent on how ambitious or elaborate you want to make your story. I would let the focus of your story determine what other research you do. Clearly, writing an imaginary first-person account in the voice of a migrant is going to take more research than using another point-of-view in your story--you might want to find personal narratives, memoirs, or autobiographies by actual migrants so you have a sense of their mindset and speaking style (think how much work Phillips must have had to do to make Edward sound like a nineteenth-century liberal Southern plantation owner, James Hamilton like an eighteenth-century British slave trader, or Joyce like a WW II-era working-class Englishwoman!). Creating a character who represents a particular attitude toward the migrants can also take some specific research--say, into attitudes and beliefs of people who act as vigilantes on the Mexican border and try to help the Border Patrol keep illegal immigrants from crossing into the U.S. So the kind of story you want to tell--and the way you want to tell it--can drive your research once you've gotten down the basic background.
Q: I thought this is a creative writing project--why are you requiring us to do all this research?
A: Please see the reasons given on the assignment sheet. My basic concern is that you will find it difficult to imagine a story for the photo you have chosen if you base it only on your general knowledge of what's going on in the world today and general ideas about migrations. Finding out just a little bit about the migration you're writing on and its social/historical context, as well as typical stories told about the migrants in it, can help you flesh out the story you imagine and develop a purpose for it. (If you don't feel that research will be crucial to your project, just do the minimum required.) But being capable of doing this kind of outside, independent research should be something (I believe) that all college students are able to do by graduation. If, after you've graduated from SUNY Fredonia, you're not capable of identifying both broad and specific research questions, finding relevant and reliable information sources, and evaluating the often competing claims and assumptions and narratives in those sources (particularly when "experts" disagree), all in order to come up with your own "take" on the questions in question, then what good has your education been to you? What good are you to this society? What good is this college if it doesn't prepare its students to be able to do these things?
Q: I am uncertain how to create a story from my picture. I understand as far as combining research with it, but I am unsure how a creative writing paper directly applies to this course.
A: I see two questions implied in this statement--a practical one of how to generate a story out of a photo and a theoretical one about how writing a story for the final project relates to the goals of the course. Let me answer the theoretical question first by pointing you toward the list of my goals and purposes for assigning you this project on the final research project page. Think about, what better way to show what you know about migration narratives by having you write one yourself? The subject matter and modes of analysis emphasized in the course should be excellent preparation for writing a story in which you apply what you've learned about how and to what ends writers construct migration narratives. Through your analyses of other writers' migration narratives, you have been exposed to various "models" in the genre--different emphases and focuses, different visions of what a migration narrative should be and do, different styles and structures, and so on.
On the practical question, there are so many ways to go about doing this, I'll just mention a few. First, consider the photo as a "moment" in time captured on film. Well, a story--a narrative--traditionally has a beginning, middle, and end. Where in that sequence might your photo fall? Might the photo introduce a conflict, represent a climax or resolution, or something else entirely? Play around with possible answers to these questions. "What story would I write if...?" is precisely the question you should be asking yourself while looking at your photo and using it as a tool for brainstorming. OK, let's look at it from another perspective: think of Sebald's The Emigrants. Clearly, looking at photographs played a key role in inspiring both his "detective" work and his writing. Thinking about what exactly that role was and what relation there is (or relations there are) between the images and text in the novel (assuming it is a novel for the moment!) can help you brainstorm about what relations there might be between the photo you've chosen and the story you choose to tell that's based on or inspired by it. Let's try another perspective: the "close reading" assignment due October 19 is another avenue for brainstorming about what stories are "in"--or implied or assumed--by the photo you've chosen. Thinking about the "form" of the photo, the "function" of significant details, the presence of implied themes, the way it raises issues and questions, the way it suggests relationships among people or between people and place represented in the photo, the photographer's possible motivations for taking that particular photo, the likely points Salgado was trying to make through the photo--all these kinds of "close reading" techniques--can help you generate a story from your photo. Maybe the photo gives you different choices for "point-of-view"--not just the photographer's perspective, but the perspectives of the various people represented in the photo, or the person out of the picture whom everybody seems to be looking at, or the person who has come across the photo and has some relation to the scene represented in it, or.... Maybe it raises questions about where people have come from, or why they're there, or where they're headed, or what caused them to move, or....
Do you get the picture? (So to speak!)
ENGL 209: Novels and Tales, Fall 2001
Created: 11/13/00 8:08 pm
Last modified: 10/3/00 4:21 pm