Hello Christy or anyone else who has done this!
My older ds is going to be a senior this fall (really in mid-August...) and I am trying to think ahead a bit. He is doing an internship until the end of July, so he can't do much prereading, but I would at least like to be thinking for him about possible author combinations. Could he do Lewis and Tolkien? He loves Lord of the Rings and Narnia. He hasn't read much other Lewis, though. Any other ideas for a young man with a packed schedule? Is this paper a must or could he do some other literature writing at the senior level and have it be enough? If he does this paper, I want him to do it first semester, just to make sure it happens. Our umbrella school requires a research paper annually, as well. I am getting tired already!

Any thoughts or advice? Please?
Thanks and Blessings,
April

anyone??? Please, oh please...
Blessings,
April

Lewis and Tolkien would be great! They have a lot in common, but there are enough differences to make an interesting paper. Have you looked at the sample comparison papers on the Writing Aids Student Samples page? There are two - one on George MacDonald and Tolkien. They really helped us and showed us how different papers could be. You may not want your ds to read the Tolkien one - it might color his writing - but you could read it and help him with format and ideas.

HTH,

Thanks, Janet!

Now the question is, will he have time to write this masterpiece,l or would his time be better spent writing smaller works...senior year is busy already!
Blessings,
April

My son was not heading for an English major at college by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this was a very good exercise for him.
The assignments are spread out well so that the paper takes the normal amount of time each week ('normal' meaning it varied week to week as normal writing assignments often do). We spread it out a little more, just because it doesn't come easily to him, and because we had other things going on.
It gave him experience doing a longer term work, which gave him more practice in pacing himself and seeing how such a long work could be done. It gave him a chance to go more in depth in the analysis of the works, which has helped him in his ongoing discerning reading of other things. I think he actually sort of enjoyed it. So I would suggest you consider working it in. He'll find things in Tolkien and Lewis that he never saw before, and enjoy them even more!