Research Applications Paper Topics
These papers should be 8-10 pages long and represent applied learning from the entire course while incorporating your own individual research. You should use MLA format, as described in the Style Book.
1. Read one of the following texts and respond to it, based upon the readings and discussions we've had for this class, as well as upon your own research:
The Clan of the Cave Bear
by
Jean M. Auel
The X in Sex : How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives
by David Bainbridge
Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot
First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are Changing the World by Helen E. Fisher
Who Cooked the Last
Supper: The Women's History of the World
by Rosalind
Miles
Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by
Leonard Shlain
2. Imagine you are on an archeological dig. Describe
the setting, location, and the artifacts you find. Speculate on what the
artifacts mean, linking that speculation to readings and discussions from the
class.
3. Write a short story set during one of the
time periods and in one of the cultures we've studied. Fill in details about the
culture from the findings of your own research. Write a one-to-two page summary
of the details you gleaned from other sources, explaining why you included them.
4. Pretend you are a person in/from one of the
cultures we've studied. Log your journal or diary entries chronicling your life
in a typical week, using information from class and from your own
research.
5. Pretend you are a member of one of the societies
we've studied this semester, and you are allowed through/by some means to travel
into the future to modern day United States of America. Write a reaction to this
experience, describing this modern culture from your perspective--once you
understand the language, etc. What parts of this life are difficult to adjust
to, and why?
6. Get a hold of a standard history book that
deals with one of the ancients cultures that we've studied. Then compare that
book's treatment of the culture to what we've studied in class. Use additional
sources to clear up any discrepancies, and then explain what significances there
are in the differences of the approaches.
7. Pick an area on the American Archeological
Periods chart that has not yet had a link to it and find and research an ancient
culture within one of those as-yet-unlinked areas. Prepare a paper explaining
that this missing link (pun intended, sadly) needs to be filled with your chosen
culture and provide persuasive evidence of that culture's history and its gender
identities.
For these papers, please use at least three sources, at least one of which is scholarly and from outside of the syllabus. For number 1, above, the text you choose from the list may be considered that scholarly source.
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Contact Kimberly M. Radek, the instructor of Women in Ancient Cultures, at Kimberly_Radek@ivcc.edu
.
This page was last updated on
21 May 2013
. Copyright Kimberly M. Radek, 2001.