Lived Practice of Catholicism in the U.S.
(032:054) Instructor: Heather Hartel

Syllabus
Policies & Requirements
Class Schedule
Assigned Weekly Readings

Assignments
Presentations
Book/Movie Review
Field Report
Final Paper

Description
The final project is a research paper of 7-10 pages and will be handed in with your final portfolio. Ideally, you should try to incorporate some aspect of living religion into your paper, meaning that you need to talk about what Catholics do, how they act or what they think. While you may incorporate some of your work from your book/movie review and field report into this paper, it should be significantly different so as to not be repetitive. There are several options for how to do this:

1. You could take your field visit and interview and expand it into a paper on the church, site etc. you visited. For instance, if you visited the Dickeyville Grotto in Wisconsin for your field report, you could write about the history of the grotto, how people react to it and interact with it, what the local population and church members think of it, what tourists think of it
2. You can take the topic of your book review and expand it into a research paper on that area. For instance, if you reviewed two books on the history of African-American Catholics in the United States, you could write a research paper on this topic that included a discussion of how post-Vatican II masses at African-American Catholic churches incorporate African ritual into their services.
3. You could take one of the movies you reviewed and write an extended analysis of it or provide an historical overview of it. For instance, you could take the movie Priest and provide a discussion of a series of this movie’s reviews and how the public reacted to it. You could also write a paper on something like the Bells of St. Mary's in which could discuss the general climate of pre-Vatican II Catholicism in the U.S. and how the themes in that movie express the concerns and morals (or desired morals) of American Catholics.
4. Finally, without relying on any of your previous work, you could come up with a whole new topic of investigation.

Requirements
Write a well thought out, well organized and insightful 7-10 page paper on a topic of your choice within the description above. The key word here is paper, so you will be expected to make some sort of an argument or try to prove some sort of point.

1. Topic Proposal & Preliminary Bibliography: This is a one paragraph description of what you are thinking of doing for your final project and a list of five sources you are looking at. It is due one week before our final project presentations begin. While the final incarnation or argument of your project can change, you should have your topic pretty solidified at this point.
2. Thesis: Your final paper needs to have a point. This is not a report, or a narrative; it is a paper and you will be expected to make some sort of argument (however simple) and prove it by providing evidence throughout your paper that supports your main point.
3. Bibliography: As this is a research paper, you will be required to provide a list of sources at the end of your paper. You are required to have at least five outside sources (other than your interviews etc.). At least three of these sources must be academic books or journal articles. URLs must be provided for online sources. If you have any questions or doubts about your sources, please talk to me. Please use MLA format for your Bibliography (Works Cited page) and your parenthetical citations.
   

Evaluation

• Required Elements: Did you hand in a topic proposal at the deadline? Does your final project somehow match your proposal? Does your paper have a thesis that you are trying to prove or demonstrate? Is your thesis an appropriate for the length of the paper? Are you making an argument or a claim about something and not just stating a fact? Do you have a bibliography that meets the above formatting and requirements? (5 points)
• Organization & Clarity: Is your paper organized in a logical manner? Does it flow from point to point? Do you have a beginning and an end that are not merely repetitive? Do you have transitions from one paragraph to the next? Does each paragraph relate to the overall point I am trying to make in the paper? Are you merely repeating myself or are you adding new information and new elaborations on your central idea as the paper progresses? (8 points)
• Insight, Support & Evidence: Do you have specific observations and interpretations of your material? Have you used and analyzed specific evidence from your sources? In other words, have I avoided merely summarizing? Instead, have you quoted or paraphrased things AND explained them, AND related them to my main argument? Is the relevance and meaning of every quote explained thoroughly and clearly in some manner? Do you have any quotes that are just hanging? Is every quote you chose relevant to the thesis in some way, either as support or as an example of an opposing point of view? Have you provided a citation for every direct quote or paraphrase? (17 points)
• Formatting, Language & Technical Proficiency: Is your paper the required length and doe it have 1 inch margins on all sides and 12 point font? Have you followed the general guidelines from the course regarding gender-inclusive, non-confessional and respectful language? Have you checked my paper for surface errors? Are there spelling, grammar and punctuation errors? Have you done a spell check on your document? (5 points)