GEOG 304 Novel Report Guidelines
California
Select one novel (or autobiography) from the list below.
As you read it, take notes on the following matters.
- Summarize the main ideas of the book (not a blow-by-blow rehash of
all the details).
- Exactly where does the story take place?
- When do the events in the story take place? In general, what is going on
in California historically or socially about the time the story takes place?
- Name the main characters in the story. For each one, note the following:
- Ethnic background
- Gender
- Approximate age
- Social class: rich, poor, or middle income?
- Occupation
- Religion, if it's mentioned and seems important to the story
- How much control does s/he have over the circumstances of the story?
- How are the main characters like you or your family? How are they
different from you or your family?
- Does the book mention any spatial or regional variations in the setting?
Are these variations cultural, economic, or environmental?
- What did you learn about California or some part of California from having
read this book? Did it surprise you in any way?
- Authors do not write for the fun of it (how much fun do you have writing
term papers, reports, lab exercises, and essays?): There is always some sort
of hidden agenda that the author is willing to work very hard to convey to
readers. What do you suppose the author is trying to waken in you?
Writing up Your Analysis
Write a review of the book you chose, approximately three pages long,
double-spaced. Begin by summarizing the main events of the story and their
setting. Describe the principal characters in terms of the notes you took on
them and how you feel you can relate to them or not relate to them in terms of
your own experience or those of your family and friends. Conclude with a
statement of what you think you learned about California from the book and
what you think the author's hidden agenda is.
Be sure to proofread, edit, and rewrite your report very carefully. About a
third of your points will come from an evaluation of your writing mechanics.
Click here for
specific guidelines about writing mechanics.
Novels or Autobiographies
- Barkhordar-Nahai, Gina. 1999. Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
(Iranian-Jewish migrant to Los Angeles, told with a lot of magical realism)
- Bing, Léon. 1992. Do or Die (gangbangers in L.A.,
interviewed in prison and at home).
- Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and Houston, James D. 1974. Farewell to
Manzanar (Japanese-American experiences in the WWII detention camps).
- Jackson, Shaneska. 1996. Caught up in the Rapture (young
African-American woman living with her preacher father in South Central,
pursuing a master's degree at UCLA and yearning to be a music celebrity)
- Kingston, Maxine Wong. 1976. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a
Girlhood among Ghosts. New York: Vintage International (Chinese-American
girl growing up in Stockton).
- Lee, Gus. 1994. China Boy (Chinese-American boy growing up in the
Panhandle of San Francisco)
- Maupin, Armistead. 1994. Tales of the City (San Francisco elite and
seedy cultures, gay and straight, during the 1970s -- very humorous)
- Mosley, Walter. 1997. Devil in a Blue Dress (murder mystery set in
post-War South Central Los Angeles)
- Mosley, Walter. 1998. A Red Death (ditto)
- Mosley, Walter. 1998. Black Betty (ditto)
- Muñoz, Elias Miguel. 1999. Brand New Memory (fourteen year
old Cuban-American girl meets her grandmother for the first time)
- Nava, Michael. 1998. The Burning Plain (mystery novel focusing on a
gay Mexican-American lawyer in Los Angeles)
- Penn, William. 1994. The Absence of Angels (Native-American migrant
from Hopi country to Los Angeles)
- Perez, Ramón. 1991. Diary of an Undocumented Immigrant
(self-explanatory, set in Texas, California, and Washington, often quite
amusing)
- Rodriguez, Richard. 1988. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard
Rodriguez (the stresses of growing up in two cultures in Sacramento and
fitting in neither)
- Steinbeck, John. 1996. The Grapes of Wrath (Dustbowl immigrants
from Oklahoma coming to California to work as migrant farm workers in the
Depression)
- Steinbeck, John. 1994. Cannery Row (several down-on-their-luck
characters in 1940s Monterey)
- Steinbeck, John. 1995. To a God Unknown (a New England farming
family settling the Salinas Valley in the nineteenth century)
- Tan, Amy. 1994. The Joy Luck Club (four Chinese mothers and their
Chinese-American daughters and the effects of assimilation between generations
of the same families, in San Francisco)
- Tan, Amy. 1996. The Hundred Secret Senses (a practical
Chinese-American woman reconnects with her mystical Chinese half-sister in San
Francisco)
- Tobar, Hector. 1998. The Tatooed Soldier (migrants from the
Guatemalan civil war, both from the death squads and from their victims'
families, meet in Los Angeles)
- Uchida, Yoshiko. 1997. Picture Bride (Japanese "picture bride"
migrant to the California of the 1930s and '40s)
- Villaéal, José Antonio. 1973. Pocho (story of an
American boy of Mexican descent growing up during the Depression in
California)
- Villaseñor, Victor Edmund. 1997. Macho! (migrant labor
experience and a coming-of-age story)
- Ybarra, Ricardo. 1997. Brotherhood of Dolphins (fictionalized
account of the search for the arsonist who burned down the Los Angeles City
Library, from the point of a Chicana firefighter and a Chicano detective)
This document is maintained by Dr.
Rodrigue
Last Updated: 02/08/00