IOP Topic Help

[Coffeee2go]

Hey Guys! We are starting our IOP and I am struggling to come up with a topic for it. Our texts are Katherine Mansfield short stories, The Quiet American by Graham Greene and We Will Not Cease by Archibald Baxter.

I considered a topic talking about the contrasting portrayal of women like Phuong in TQA with one of Mansfields characters and how society has progressed in its treatment of women and their role in society but its a little bit typical I think and I was almost wanting to something more out there and different. 

I would love any improvements on my topic or any ideas! The topic is due this weekend!

Thanks x

[VeronicaG]

Can't help much since I don't know those works but try to avoid 'roles of women' unless you want a 5 or 6 tops. 

I did an IOP by basically making up conspiracy theories about the last chapters of the works I studied (which were ambiguous endings) and proving them with quotes/evidence. 

My class thought I was crazy but after the presentation I convinced most of them. Got a 7 and made my teacher speechless

[Coffeee2go]

Thanks for that! What texts did you do if I might ask? and how did you approach your conspiracy theory in relation to them?

[VeronicaG]

I had the choice of doing "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad

My IOP focused on The Handmaid's Tale. The last chapter of the book takes place 200 years after the story and is about a group of historians analysing the experience of the main character, who had ambiguously disappeared.

I argued several things: that the same social injustices are still prominent, where the historians were, the new style of government, and even extrapolated some facts about the 'past' that were never previously mentioned.

Based on the social structure of the historians' society, I argued that I knew for sure that the main character's ambiguous disappearance was actually her being arrested and then executed. The class thought she had escaped, but now they think my version is correct.

Basically I just made up plausible reasons as to what had to happen to go from a controlling religious regime to the historians' scene 200 years later. I asked myself 'what if...' and supported whatever crazy idea I thought of with diction and syntax.

I dressed up like a crazy conspiracy theorist too, which helped keep the audience's attention.