Cultural attitudes & your independent reading book

In College, you will often do research do supplement your reading. This may include critical theories about your author to researching the context influencing your book. Today, you will research the historical and cultural context of your book to help you understand more about the cultural attitudes that helped to shape the characters, plot or themes of the book. This can be completed in question and answer form with complete sentences or paragraph form.

1. Create a google doc title it ___(per) cultural attitudes _____(name)
2. Identify the time period / school of thought your book was written in (i.e. realism, modernist)
3. conduct some research: What attitudes / beliefs did this school of thought reflect? (a few ideas have been given to you on the handout)
4. What beliefs was your author known for during the writing of this book? What historical events influenced your author (i.e. the belief that man was inherently evil brought upon by civil war)
5. You should be about ¾ of the way done with your book. Where do you see these ideas reflected in the story. (Give 1-2 examples of something a character does, a description of people that reflects the nature of the belief.)
6. Document all of your sources in a works cited list using MLA format (1-2 sources minimum) Try to stay away from wikipedia

These are a few sources to get you started
Try novel resources & literary movements from PBS

University of Maryland American realism 

Modernism