Ragtime writing assignment (response writing #3)
For this assignment you have a choice of whether you would like to do historical research or a character analysis.  This is due April 15th, via email.  Please send your document to me as an attachment; do not cut-and-paste your text into a message window.  Send your email to: dlw7@nyu.edu.  The assignment will be given a letter grade and averaged into your semester quiz average.

Character analysis
In a 2-3 page essay, discuss how one character changes during the course of the novel.  Your analysis should quote from the novel to illustrate your ideas and should include your ideas about why these changes are significant in terms of the novel itself.  Avoid plot summary (re-telling the story) and avoid making lists of things that happen to a particular character.  Instead offer an interpretation of a particular character and explain why you have arrived at this interpretation.  Please let me know which character you plan to write about before you begin writing.

Historical research
In a 2-3 page essay, give historical context for one of the topics listed below (you must sign up for a particular topic prior to doing this assignment), using the internet as your primary research tool.  Your research should focus on aspects of the topic that have to do specifically with Ragtime; you must include the addresses of websites where you found your information.  Do not rely exclusively on encyclopedia websites.  Your paper should give historical information and discuss the topic in terms of the novel—explaining why you think the author included this particular topic/person/event/issue in his book.

Possible research topics:
Stanford White (his biography and architectural style)
Evelyn Nesbit
New Rochelle at turn of century
Emma Goldman—politics and/or biography
Union organization 1900-1915 and reasons for opposition to unions
JP Morgan (biography, financial dealings, business dealings)
Ellis Island’s treatment of immigrants
life in tenements (New York City’s Lower East Side, for example)
Jacob Riis and his social reforms
the movie industry at the turn-of-the-century
Henry Ford and the assembly line
“trusts” (monopolies and big businesses: Standard Oil, Carnegie, and so forth)
role of women in 1900 (pre-suffrage)
women’s suffrage movement
Teddy Roosevelt (as president, as explorer)
Houdini’s biography and famous tricks
New York musical theater/ burlesque/chorus girls (Ziegfeld Follies, etc)
Scott Joplin career and ragtime music
Harlem in the pre-WWI era
Early days of jazz music (jazz singers, blues clubs, specific musicians)