Final Project: Due either the last day of dead week (Friday, December 11th) or on Wednesday, December 16th, between 1 and 2:30, dropped off to me in person at Heavilon 220. If you chose to write the final project you designed in your Short Assignment 3, please turn in a copy of SA3 with your final project so that I may evaluate the essay based on your own assignment criteria. Media projects may be emailed to me no later than Tuesday December 15th: do not consider them received until I email you with a confirmation that they have been received and are properly working. NO EMAILED ESSAYS WILL BE ACCEPTED AND ANY ESSAY EMAILED WILL BE TREATED AS A ZERO.

Requirements: One 8 to 10 page (research) paper, built on an argument with a clear, well defined and supported major claim. At least 5 sources are required; two must be academic print sources as previously defined in-class.

In the essay you are required to do several things:

1) Choose a specific style for writing about the topic: While you don't need to address your choice explicitly, your choice of style must fit the topic.

2) Integrate your research. Again, HOW you do this is up to you.

3) Include some sort of analysis of the research and the issue: again, HOW you do this is a major challenge of the final project.

These requirements are incredibly vague: the challenge and hopefully excitement of the final project is to demonstrate your knowledge of what we have done over the course of the semester. In class over the next few weeks, I will give plenty of examples and demonstrations of potential routes to take: you may use or adapt any of those, or create something that is completely your own.

You will also construct a media project that should capture the flavor of the voices on the issue. Instead of trying to represent the issue factually, think about representing it in terms of its emotional flavor, or for its visual aspects. What you include or use to do this is up to you, but, obviously, the more creative and relevant, the better. Also, realize that this is approximately a third of the value of the final grade and treat it accordingly. A fantastic ten page essay is great, but paired with a 2 slide PowerPoint, it will not be a great overall final project... Almost any mediated approach will be acceptable, but if you're having anxiety about this aspect of the project, talk to me.

The class topics for the final paper are (but remember you may also use the topics you wrote about in Small Assignment 3):

1) Pop Culture vs. Reality: (Pirates v. Pirates of the Carribbean,  Zombies v. Voodoo; Wicca v. Witchcraft and Wizardry; Real Stories (Fairy Tales, or History)  v. The Disney Version, etc.)

2) Social Deviance, Social Mores, Experimentation, and Society’s Reaction (Drugs, Vandalism, Theft, Sexuality, Dress – Fashion, Language)

3) The Supernatural and the Shape of the Meta-Physical

4) The Problems of Higher Education: Economic, Academic, or Social

5) Hogwart’s Houses and their Ideological Implications