Senior Thesis

Description: Senior Thesis involves coaching and personally guiding students through the process of writing a research paper, from searching out a topic to the point of completion. The student will choose their own topic on which to write. One of the functions of this paper, besides demonstrating mastery of the English grammar, is to intelligibly discuss a topic of interest, which has hopefully been sparked by previous studies and interest. This provides an opportunity to draw from classes the student has already taken, display that grasp, as well as demonstrate the ability to acquire new information and articulate it in light of what they already know. Students will learn the process of transferring an idea into a clear and organized written expression. Some of the skills we will focus on are formulating and defending a strong thesis, thinking through sentence and paragraph structure, stylistic considerations, as well as correctly referencing source material according to MLA standards. During the last two weeks of the course, each student will formally present their paper in class. Students should expect to spend 3-6 hours a week on this class. By the end of this class, the student will have a polished paper, which is invaluable for college/university applications. This class is worth 1/2 a high school credit in Language Arts, Composition, or Writing.

Grade Level: 11-12 (ages 16-18) (strong 10th graders as well)

Prerequisites: The course is a capstone class and assumes that the student can write grammatically correct and complete sentences. It also assumes a student has written essays and papers before (not necessarily a research paper), but does not assume completion of our Classical Composition program.

Required Materials: MLA Handbook and Research Papers for Dummies. Students will also need a USB headset microphone (built-in microphones also work).