Extended Essay - Stress

[Sleeping Dude]

Hey! It's me again talking about my extended essay. I am in a situation where I am not sure what to do. Firstly, when I began the extended essay course, my first preference was psychology and I had a really good topic, but I was not selected, as the class could only select a certain few. My second preference was English, mainly because of this one topic that I really wanted to explore; the portrayal of God in works by William Blake. However, my teacher did not like this idea (which I have zero understanding why) and she forced me into choosing novels (which is the worst type of texts for me - as novels are mainly less sophisticated than poems or plays). She shut down most of my ideas coming from that and I eventually just chose to do The Book Thief, as my teacher pointed out in class that she read this and it was very interesting. 

After having a read of this and picking my idea (which was colour imagery used by the narrator of death to give insight into the complex nature of humans), I've realised that the Book Thief is well overdone and my topic has already been explored (yet, my EE teacher never mentioned these issues to me). With my topic, it is very difficult to come up with creative ideas, especially when people have been doing it since the beginning of IB and posting their essays online (which I only read after writing mine first to make sure my ideas won't be skewed, and realising how similar the ideas were). Now, I am in a tight spot, and I don't know what to do. I only have 6 more weeks until EE is due, and my teacher is useless as hell. Whenever I work on my EE or edit my EE now, I just feel uncomfortable. 

I'm exceptionally worried as there are only two paths for me; do a fresh, entirely new EE or continue with mine and potentially get plagiarism and then fail my diploma that I have been working so hard for. I honestly feel like crying on how my life sucks, and I want someone to explain the whole plagiarism to me for EE. If I have the same idea (that I came up with myself) but someone already done this, is this plagiarism? If my topic is very similar to someone's (which I also came up with myself), is this plagiarism? 

And if I were to continue with this idea and if you said no to the questions above, how can I make the EE really about me? Do I have to push my creativity even beyond what I did? I would like it if someone could reply who had experience with this situations. 

Thanks. 

[kw0573]

At this time, there is a fee for changing subject, so you should just stick with English. Whatever you think are similar to your ideas, you can just cite them. IB doesn't really care if your ideas are similar to others, as long as you didn't base your analysis entirely upon someone else's. For example, you may have different evidence or different focus. I strongly suggest that you modify the topic if it is overwhelmingly similar with same approach and analysis, as in one that raises very strong suspicion. Basically as long as you expand upon one or two details others have failed to notice, or failed to elaborate upon, it's fine.