Prof. Richard F. Johnson
As part of your fulfillment of the Literary Research Paper assignment for English 102, you are required to compile an Annotated Bibliography of ten sources related to the subject of your research paper.
An annotated bibliography is essentially a bibliography (a list of works) with notes. For each work you list, you must write a brief description of the work and its relevance to your project. Your annotations should be about one paragraph each (roughly 8-10 sentences). You should devote 4 or 5 sentences to describing what the text is about generally, and what the author's thesis and supporting points are specifically. Complete your annotation with 4 or 5 sentences about how the particular work will relate to or support the aim of your project.
To help you with writing your annotations, here are some guidelines from James L. Harner's On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography*:
*Harner, James L. On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography. 2nd ed. New York: MLA, 2000.
Peck, Demaree. "Possession Granted by a Different Lease: Alexandra Bergson's Imaginative Quest of Cather's Nebraska." Modern Fiction Studies 36 (Spring 1990): 5-22.
Peck's analysis of Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers! looks at how the character Alexandra Bergson takes imaginative possession of the landscape just as Cather herself is taking imaginative possession of her materials. Some of the article includes exploration of how Alexandra comes to express herself through the soil, and this idea seems reflective of nonverbal communication, when something other than words is used to communicate with oneself and others. Ultimately, I don't know how useful this article will be, but I think it may help me to think about kinds of nonverbal communication, which may lead to an understanding of the "secrecy" of the novel.