English EE help?

[suffocatingsilence]

Hey,

 

I'm in Year 12, and we're currently starting to write our EE proposals. I am terrible at keeping track of these kinds of things, and now i only have 2 days to come up with a topic, research question, and a few sources to start me off.

 

I'm interested in writing my EE on some kind of english topic, but I'm really clueless as to what topic i could pick.

 

I'm pretty interested in:

 

Feminism (this is probably my favourite out of these topics)

LGBT

Human rights 

Rape culture

The impacts of society on young girls' body image

 

I'm completely stuck, and all i can find on these topics are things like the EE written on "The empowerment of the Feminine in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings" and "What role do women play in _____? " (etc...)

 

I haven't read many of the books in the criteria, and I'm much more into more modern YA fiction or fantasy books.

 

For example:

 

Anything written by John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson is what made me thing of LGBT as a topic)

The Mortal Instruments 

Ender's Game

Divergent

The Host

Unwind

Harry Potter (although i've heard that this is a topic that does not get many high marks)

 

 

I have studied Death of a Salesman, Julius Caesar, and The Great Gatsby, but beyond that, i do not have much experience with more literary or criteria-included texts.

 

Thank you in advance

[Sandwich]

I think you should start by trying to find a decent text to work with for starters. The ones you listed as having read are more teenagers books, and often don't have so much 'literary' content as they're quite simplistic. Enjoyable to read, of course, but not necessarily good for EEs. Harry Potter EEs have been done and have occasionally done well, but the main issue is the same - there's a lack of complexity. You can't really write a good EE based on compelling plot alone, and the characters/themes aren't too developed.

 

If you really want to write about sexual issues then you can, but you should find a good book exploring these issues as your step 1. 

 

Personally I think it would be better to pick a novel you really like and want to analyse - better than selecting a random topic and trying to find novels to fit with it, just because you're time limiting in terms of reading all these novels. A bit of google searching should point you in the direction of some classics which deal with the topics you raised though, they're pretty heavily written about and stuff like feminism (or lack of) can be argued in virtually any text with a female character, to some extent or another! It's a blood out of a stone theme in that regard, even its absence can be made into something.

 

A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood is very simple to read and deals with women, rape and to some extent human rights. Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess has some rape culture issues and is also simple to read. I'm sure you can find lots of others.

[traveller]

Pride and Prejudice might have a good amount of content on relevant themes, although my memory is somewhat weary of the book.

A Thousand Splendid Suns would be great for your themes, and it's a very meaningful and enjoyable read. One of my favorites. However you might want to ask one of the more IB experienced users if A Thousand Splendid Suns is a good enough book in terms of literary complexity/IB standards.