Tan and the Research Synthesis Project, Launched

Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" (1989) follows a Chinese immigrant mother, believing fiercely in the promise of American opportunity, pushing her reluctant daughter through a series of attempts to become a child prodigy before settling on piano lessons. The daughter's quiet, growing resentment culminates in a deliberately terrible recital performance, meant to spite her mother's expectations, causing a rift that lasts for years. The story's central symbol is a pair of piano pieces the daughter played as a child, "Pleading Child" and "Perfectly Contented" -- as an adult, looking again at the old sheet music, she realizes they are "two halves of the same song," a symbol for finally reconciling two long-opposed versions of both herself and her relationship with her mother, once time and distance make new understanding possible.

This week launches the course's final project: a research-supported synthesis essay tracing one enduring theme across at least three texts studied this year, spanning more than one unit or era, supported by at least one outside secondary source evaluated for authority, currency, accuracy, and purpose. Strong thread options include the American Dream and self-invention (Franklin, Douglass's pursuit of literacy and freedom, Gatsby), freedom versus constraint (Winthrop's covenant, Thoreau's civil disobedience, Douglass's and Jacobs's narratives), or the search for authentic voice and identity (Douglass, Dunbar's mask, Hurston, Tan). This week's task is to choose a thread, select three candidate texts spanning different eras, and draft a working thesis -- the actual essay will be completed next week.