Critical Research Proposal

By -
For my critical response research paper I plan to focus on the roles that friends play in adolescents behaviors.

Essential Question: What role does the friends of an adolescent play when it comes to the decisions they make in life whether it be good or bad?

Focus Questions:
1.       Do friends play a positive or negative role?
2.       How much influence do friends usually have?
3.       Does the amount of time that the friendship has existed play a role in whether or not an adolescent is easily influenced by them?
4.       Do adolescents look to friends for confirmation in what they do?
5.       Would adolescents make the same decisions in life had they not had any friends?
6.       Do adolescents usually trust the people that they call friends?
7.       What would a real good/bad friend do in a tough situation that an adolescent is placed in?

Overview: The friends that adolescents surround themselves with usually play a major role in many of the decisions that they make. During the adolescent ages, most tend to turn away from parents to confide in and friends are left to turn to. However, depending on the type of friends that the adolescent has, this could be a good or bad thing.

Why: I have selected this topic because I feel that in many of the books that we have read this semester, the adolescents who go through some type of situation whether it be with drugs, or trying to figure out who they are in life, friends have always played a major part in some of the decisions that were made. So I wanted to research what others have to say about friends being an influence in an adolescent’s life.

Titles: Crank, The World Made Straight, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Skin I'm In

Resources: I plan to find academic journals and articles that relate to my subject. I hope to find some that include statistics with friends influence on adolescents

Claim/ Argument: Friends have the most influence on the choices that adolescents make.


Challenges: I think that one challenge I may come across is figuring out whether friends have a good influence or bad influence. I also think I will struggle with balancing out whether friends influence in bad ways more or good ways. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C
Read more