Research Process: From Reading to Writing

Read the Assignment Carefully

Keep Reading…it’s so detailed for a reason

If it’s provided, study the outline

Fill in the gaps by reading notes and watching tutorials

Note: everyone has gaps in their education. Each time I confront something I feel I ought to have known, I do get upset, but I don’t blame myself. No one taught me whatever it was I ought to have known.

Ask Questions

What is a bridge paragraph?

It is a paragraph that connects your poetry analysis to your fiction analysis.

Example:—-—-end poetry analysis——

[Bridge Paragraph]While “Kubla Khan” is unapologetically Romantic and obviously the product of a man with plenty of leisure time, Hardy’s Jude the Obscure explores the dangers of Romantic ideals with regard to the working classes. [Bridge Paragraph]

——-begin fiction analysis——-

Read your selected text

Ask questions while readingAnnotate

Read the introduction to the textChekov considers his play a comedy, but it reads likea tragedy; there are slapstick elements, and some of

the dialogue is humorous/witty (from intro. to The CherryOrchard; Norton Anthology of World Literature).

Read all footnotes Read lecture notes

Pay attention to what is making you thinkWhy a cherry orchard?How soon did the Russian Revolution occur after this play was written?Is Petya serving as a mouthpiece for Chekov?Why would Firs choose to stay with the family?

Note aspects of the text with which you identify.I have something to say about this play because I have a family that is similar to this one.They don’t understand the meaning of money, and some have been spoiled rotten.I also really liked what Petya had to say about “human dignity.”

Remember the Assignment…

Brainstorm

Unlined paper works bestUse a pencil

Write all over the place

Draw

Make lists

Go for a walk and think about it

Put the book away

You don’t have to write in complete sentences

Doodle

How does The Cherry Orchard compare to “Ode on a Grecian Urn”?

The Cherry Orchard is a realist drama

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a Romantic poem

The upper classes had plenty of time to read and think

The Romantics had the luxury of contemplating metaphysical stuff

Petya criticizes all the theorizing and talking Russian intellectuals do; he thinks practical application and action is best.

Lopakhin presses Liubov to make a decision; she doesn’t, and he buys the estate.

The cherry orchard may represent the pastoral/nature; it does provide beauty (perhaps even “truth,” but the time does not call for contemplation on truth and beauty; it calls for meaningful and practical action.

Make connections to other works we’ve read

Candide—“Well put. Now let us tend our garden.”Translation: Be practicalLiubov and Gayev are not practical; they are kind of like Pangloss; Gayev’s speech to the bookshelf.What good is knowledge if you don’t use it?

Tartuffe takes Orgon’s house, revealing Orgon’s blind faith in him.Liubov and Gayev are also misguided or blinded by their upbringing; they do not see a good thing when it is right in front of them, so Lopakhin is well within his rights to buy the estate himself.

Gulliver’s TravelsMaybe The Cherry Orchard is a satire. Are we supposed to sympathize with any of the characters aside from Anya and Petya?What is the play satirizing? People who live in the past? Those who hang onto what they once were? Firs, Liubov, Gayev?

Firs and Oroonoko? Is Firs conditioned to be a serf? Does he stay because he doesn’t know how to live another way or somewhere else?

Sister JuanaHow does Chekov characterize the women in the play?Luibov is a total disaster, but Varya and Anya seem to have their heads on straight.Do they represent a new generation of women?

Review your notes and narrow them down to a list of questions

• How is this play funny? Is it a satire? What is it satirizing?• What is the play saying about equality? Firs?• What is the play saying about Russian culture in the early 20th

century?• Is the play “communist”?• What does the play say about philosophy—if anything at all?

Remember the Assignment…

Choose to research and “answer” the question that best fits the assignment and the poem you have studied

How is this play funny? Is it a satire? What is it satirizing?

Connect it to your poem

Could “Ode on a Grecian Urn” be considered a satire?

The figures in the past are frozen on the urn, and the characters in Chekov’s play are frozen in the past.

Is the play a critique of Romanticism as a very “upper-class” philosophy with little bearing on the “real world”?

Remember the Assignment…

Review your questions and decide which literary approach to take in relation to your poem.

The Cherry Orchard as a critique of Romanticism and why it is

irrelevant in his time and place Cultural

The Cherry Orchard as a critique of the upper class

Marxist

Develop a working thesis

The Cherry Orchard is a satire criticizing Romanticism and its

irrelevance in early 20th century Russia.

And start researching…

Note: you may change your thesis at any time before you post your blog, so don’t feel you have to prove your hypothesis; change it if the research shows you something else or something you would rather focus on.

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