1) We know that art imitates life. Pick a piece of literature that depicts real world events and compare/contrast the real version and the fictional version. It would also be a good idea to discuss the reasoning for the fictional version to be different from the real life version.
2) Choose a specific theme you find interesting and explore that theme across multiple pieces. You may also choose to compare/contrast the use of that theme in multiple pieces. I wouldn’t recommend choosing more than 3 pieces of literature for this, but 2 pieces is probably the best way to go if you decide to compare/contrast.
3) Explore how the setting of a specific piece of literature impacts meaning, theme, or character development.
4) Compare/Contrast two pieces of literature based on one or two literary elements.
5) Sometimes, a piece of literature is structured in such a way that the reader is confronted with a surprise of some sort, like an unexpected twist or event. Pick a piece of literature we read this semester that contains this kind of surprise and discuss the way in which the surprise impacted the meaning or theme of that piece of literature.
6) Whether they are obvious or not, there are always cultural and contextual influences on every piece of literature we read. Choose a piece of literature which is obviously influenced by the culture of its author or the context in which it was written and explore the ways in which that culture and/or context impacted the piece of literature.
7) The style in which a piece of literature is written, or the style of the dialogue in a piece of literature, is always a specific choice made by the author/poet/playwright. Pick a story that you feel has a unique writing style or style of dialogue and discuss the ways in which that style impacts the meaning of the piece or how we experience it/relate to it.
8) Complete a character analysis on two characters, preferably from the same piece of literature, unless you are going to center your character analysis on a comparison/contrast, which is an option for you. Some of the elements of characters you may choose to address are whether you relate to the characters, whether the characters are static or dynamic, whether the characters are tragic heroes, whether the characters are used as foils, how the characters are affected by the setting or context, are the characters symbolic of something bigger than themselves, do we witness the characters coming of age or coming into their own, etc. To be clear, you don’t have to address ALL of these things. They are just things that you could consider. Please do not just describe the characters. I want a good, thoughtful, deep dive on the characters.
Be careful not to choose prompts that overlap too much. You don’t want to put yourself in danger of repeating yourself throughout your different responses.
