By Keya Nijhawan
When you hear about junior year at Lovett, one topic that never fails to come up is the AMSTUD Research Paper. Before experiencing it myself, I remember thinking it couldn’t possibly be that bad. However, this thought was quickly proven wrong within moments of when Dr. Ezell introduced the paper to my class back in December.
To introduce the paper, Dr. Ezell had us come up with researchable questions about topics we liked before the end of the first semester. I found this harder than anticipated because I couldn’t quite immediately pinpoint a topic that I liked, was researchable, and related to the American identity. But I had time to let my mind wander during Christmas Break.
Once we were back for the second semester, it was finally time to get the process going. In what felt like no time at all, our initial thesis was due, followed by the topic proposal, annotated bibliography, outline, and first draft.
The due date of the first draft was strategically placed before spring break, so we had time to relax and were able to look at our paper with fresh eyes when we got back to school. Although it was nice not to have to think about the paper over spring break when we got back it felt like the final draft was due in no time.
For me and many of my fellow Honors American Studies scholars, the paper consumed our lives for what felt like years but was really only a few months. Chelsea Daniel, who has a different teacher duo than me, Mr. May-Beaver and Mr. Tuttle, said in the most dramatic way possible, “It took my soul. It took my heart, it took my being, everything, but the fact that I toiled and struggled over that paper made it that much more satisfying when I turned it in.”
Andrew Flint said he “bonded with Mr. Tuttle and learned a lot about the baby boom generation.” Daniel Kauffman explained that he grew his relationship with Mr. May-Beaver but did not have a fantastic time writing his paper.
For Chelsea, the ruthless process of the AMSTUD paper, which shows no mercy for anyone, was rewarding in the end when she turned it in the day before prom. However, she was jealous of Ms. Gray and Dr. Ezell’s students, who were greeted with warm Krispy Kreme doughnuts as they came to turn in their papers on Ms. Gray’s shelves at 8:25 a.m.
The students face ups and downs throughout the research paper process, but what is it like for the teachers? What’s their favorite part of the process?
Dr. Ezell explained that he enjoys seeing the topics the students pick. Many times, they go further back in history than he would think or find a really specific niche he would have never expected. He also enjoys the topic proposal stage because “by that point, the project has not yet consumed you,” he said.
On the flip side, Ms. Gray’s favorite part is the end because the students get to see how they’ve made it through the process. She explained that it is not immediately after they’ve turned in the paper, but at this point in the year after they’ve had a few weeks, she gets to see “whether the process went really smoothly or maybe it didn’t go smoothly… they see what they’ve really accomplished.”
Next, I wondered if they would change anything about the research paper process, which they had to ponder for a moment.
Ms. Gray explained that she wished they could start the process earlier. She credited Dr. Ezell, as this year he introduced the paper in late November, with allowing us to start the brainstorming process earlier. Although Ms. Gray still wishes to begin earlier than that, she noted, “There’s so much intensity in the fall with learning the interdisciplinarity of the course that it’s very hard to move up any earlier.”
Since I knew the deadlines for my peers and I felt very quick, I asked how they felt.
Dr. Ezell said he thought they went very well this year, although the deadline for the first draft fell in the midst of many trips like the New York Theater Trip and the Singer’s trip, which was a little rough. But other than that and a few cases of illness he felt the deadlines were met well. “I felt the work we were getting suggested that people were able to adapt and deal with the deadlines,” he said. He also acknowledged that the deadlines may have felt too soon to the students “but the work they turned in suggested that they rose to the occasion.”
Ms. Gray immediately agreed with Dr. Ezell and added, “I think this year was the best; we had students meeting deadlines and a lot of people really doing a lot of planning to meet those deadlines.”
I then asked if they had any students pick topics that surprised them.
Dr. Ezell immediately recalled Joshua Stewart’s paper from last year which was about the rise of ballroom culture in the 1980s as a response to the AIDS crisis, and Helen Sands who wrote on missing children on milk cartons, “which I just thought was a kind of a bygone thing at this point, or I don’t know why anybody would be interested in it. But she talked about how missing children are advertised and policed and all that stuff,” he explained. Lastly, he mentioned Ella Williams’s paper this year which compared the architecture of the Founding Fathers and the Great American Capitalists and how they reflected on American Society.
Ms. Gray then mentioned one from this year which looked at Disney movies through a modern lens and mental health angles. “I will never look at Pooh and Eeyore and Tigger the same way and Piglet the same way again,” she said.
Lastly, I asked what trends they have seen over the years.
“Serial killers lately have been very much in fashion,” she said, chuckling. She then explained that they would be putting that topic on hiatus because it often derails students from fulfilling their full potential on the paper, just as the topic of Woodstock did.
Dr. Ezell added on by explaining that often topics correlate with whatever television show is trending at the moment. “This year we had two papers on Elvis and that Elvis film had just come out,” he said. He explained that many times the papers are responding to media that are making arguments or presenting a particular vision of what this American figure is like. This reoccurs from year to year but with different topics.
And to close us out Ms. Gray ended with one last trend: students feel accomplished at the end of this process. “As hard as it is, as trying as it is, as exhausted as they are, students feel that they have really truly accomplished something,” she said. “And that has remained unchanged in all the years that I’ve been here.”
