The best English literature project ideas for high school students start with a specific, arguable question rather than a broad theme. From there, the strongest projects meet three criteria:

• The topic genuinely interests you. Chances are good your project will take four to eight weeks or more, so pick something that will hold your interest.
• The topic is feasible. The question should fit your timeline and the sources you can actually get.
• The topic sends a signal to colleges. Does the project reflect your hard-working attitude, your unique perspective on literature, your ability to dig into primary and secondary sources?

Key Takeaways

• Start with an arguable question that doubles as a passion project, one with real application to AP/IB or your college application's extracurricular profile, and that builds a writing portfolio you can reuse across supplements.
• Find an argument to defend. You need a defensible argument to avoid writing a descriptive summary. Close reading is a surefire method for finding an argument.
• Dig into literary devices. Symbolism, motif, tone, point of view, these concepts form the backbone of literary analysis. Use them to justify the close reading.
• Go beyond Common Core. The Common Core provides the floor for literature assignments in high school (e.g., the text complexity standard for grades 11-CCR is CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.10). Aim to exceed the floor with primary and secondary sources for an impressive, well-researched project.
• Consider writing a counter-intuitive argument. Nothing says strong literary analysis quite like defending a counter-intuitive, or even counter-popular, argument.

What Makes a Strong English Literature Project

You should be able to answer a question with your literature topic. Not just any question, a specific, arguable one. This is the difference between "Gender in Literature" and "How does Fitzgerald use Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby to reinforce or critique 1920s gender expectations?"

You'll struggle to write a defensible thesis with the first. With the latter, however, you'll be on your way to an argumentative literary analysis.

To answer the question, you'll have to defend a position in writing, an argument. Arguments are hard to find, so start with close reading: once you've thoroughly and analytically read a piece of literature, arguments tend to present themselves.

To sharpen your literary analysis, discuss literary elements like motif, tone, and point of view. These concepts justify the arguments you draw from a text.

Quick Picker: Match the Format to Your Goal

Need a format for your English literature project ideas? Use the quick picker below to determine the most applicable option.

The six skill categories in AP English Literature and Composition are Character, Setting, Structure, Narration, Figurative Language, and Literary Argumentation.

Analytical Project Ideas: Research Papers and Literary Essays

Literary analysis is the bread and butter of high school ELA, so it's good to show that you can take your analysis into higher education with strong research paper ideas for English class and beyond. Research papers are also the format that admissions readers will likely recognize the quickest, so if you're on the fence about a format, start here. 

Many students will also default to research papers for AP Research or a college application supplement, so it's a format you may be completing regardless.

If a student asks which lens to start with, I point them toward whichever one lets them argue against the obvious reading. A feminist reading of Gatsby that just restates "Daisy is trapped by 1920s norms" is a summary. One that argues she uses those norms strategically is a thesis.

From here, you'll want to do some preliminary research, so you're sure that there's some meat on your chosen bone. JSTOR and Project MUSE are your friends when it comes to research papers on literature: look up secondary criticism that engages with your topic, and if your school doesn't provide free access, try a public library, since most provide free JSTOR and MUSE access with a library card.

It can be helpful to begin an annotated bibliography as you're doing research. It's tedious in week two, but it'll save your project when it threatens to crumble in week six. Indigo Research also wrote a guide that dives into the weeds of research paper ideas.

Creative and Multimodal Project Ideas

If you want to take a project in a creative or non-traditional direction, consider the question of what skill you want to demonstrate through the project. Admissions officers want to see evidence of close reading and literary analysis. Creative or multimodal projects are great because they demonstrate your ability to make arguments through analysis but also show that you have range as a reader and writer.

Written

• Write three to five linked short stories that explore a theme, character arc, literary device, or other element from a novel you've read. For example, if you loved unreliable narration in House of Leaves, try exploring that device in your own writing.
• Write a screenplay that adapts a literary classic from a new perspective. For example, adapt To Kill a Mockingbird from Boo Radley's perspective.
• Write the diary of a character in a literary classic, weaving in plenty of evidence from the novel to show off your reading.
• Retell a classic from the perspective of a minor character. For example, write about Frankenstein's monster's encounter with the De Lacey family from the perspective of the blind father.

Pair any of these with a one-paragraph artist's statement explaining the literary technique you sought to explore or emulate. Without that statement, a strong story just reads as a hobby. With it, it reads as a demonstrated skill.

Audio-Visual

• Create a four-to-six episode podcast series that explores an author, literary movement, or literary device. For example, explore symbolism across works from one movement, with each episode digging into a few books.
• Create a trailer for your favorite book. Think about the main argument or point of interpretation you'd like to make in the trailer, since book trailers aren't plot summaries.
• Record a dramatic reading of a scene and submit it with a brief analysis explaining the choices you made in your interpretation.
• Pick a scene from a book that was adapted into a movie and analyze how the scene was adapted. Focus on one key difference between the scene as written and as performed, and what limitations of each medium that change reveals.

Digital

• Create a blog and publish literary criticism of books that interest you. Post at least once a week for one semester, then submit a link to the blog and two or three of the strongest posts.
• Assemble a portfolio collecting your best writing about literature, creative and critical, ideally produced over an entire school year.
• Put together a literary magazine featuring your own writing alongside contributions from classmates.
• Use the free website Twine to build an interactive fiction game. Unreliable narration is easy to incorporate when the reader's own decisions determine what happens next.

A few contests add external validation to a project. The Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest offers a $25,000 grand prize to the best essay based on Ayn Rand's novel each year, and winning essays demonstrate strong argumentation and close reading of the text.

Bennington College sponsors the Bennington Young Writers Awards. Categories include poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and prize money is $1,000 for first place in each category. Read the fine print, though: finalist and winner prizes are four-year scholarships only good at Bennington, valued at $40,000 and $60,000 for finalists and winners respectively. That's not quite the same as winning $40,000.

English Literature Research Paper Topics for High School

One of the best things about an English language arts research project is that you get to choose the topic. If you're doing the project as an extension of a class assignment, there might be parameters, but even within those guidelines, you'll be expected to show your own interests and insights.

If the project is entirely self-guided, for AP/IB credit or for your college application, you'll be judged on how interestingly you can demonstrate your own curiosity and thoughtfulness.

Choose a question to explore, not a topic

If you're writing a research paper, the format admissions readers will recognize the quickest, make sure you start with a question to explore, not just a topic, the same distinction covered above. The test I'd apply: can you state a one-sentence answer, the foundation of your argument, that someone else might legitimately challenge? That's the difference between a project that earns a good grade and one that inspires a college essay.

Need help writing one? Check out Indigo Research's guide to writing a research paper.

Here are some potential starting points. Pick one that speaks to you, or use them as inspiration for questions of your own:

1. How do The Great Gatsby's valley of ashes and green light compete as symbols of the American Dream?

2. The dystopian novels 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 all depict oppressive societies, but each imagines oppression differently. How does each work conceive of control?

3. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a book about colonialism written from an anti-colonial perspective. How does the novel's structure reinforce its representation of the collapse of Igbo culture from the inside, not the outsider's point of view?

4. Can you reconcile your understanding of fatal flaws from Shakespeare's tragedies with your reading of two or three of them (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello)?

5. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag learns about past attempts to censor books, the kind of history behind today's First Amendment debates over banned books. Use this description of censorship throughout the ages as a lens on the rest of the book: does the novel affirm or undermine this history of censorship?

6. Zora Neale Hurston uses dialect and free indirect discourse to give Janie a strong individual voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God. How does Janie's narrative strength contrast with the silencing she experiences in certain relationships?

7. Both Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front call into question the reliability of their narrators' memories, but their attitudes toward memory differ. Explore the representation of memory in these two war classics.

8. Flannery O'Connor's fiction is filled with grotesque imagery. Choose one of her short stories and analyze how she uses grotesque images to comment on the failings of the South or Southern Gothic literature.

9. How does contemporary Asian American literature complicate the notion of "immigrant literature"? Use at least two novels to defend your argument.

10. How would Ovid's Metamorphoses change if it were written today? Consider a brief retelling of one of the stories from the point of view of a different character, since what's trustworthy changes when the narrator changes.

11. What do The Crucible's accusations have in common with accusations made in our own society? Consider political scandals in particular, and how similar the rhetoric of accusation is to the language used to persecute politicians.

12. Traumatic memories defy chronological organization. How does Toni Morrison structure Beloved as a challenge to linearity and an exploration of what happens when plot isn't the vehicle for delivering a story?

Need more project inspiration? See Indigo Research's guide to passion project ideas.

End-of-Novel Project Ideas for Canonical Texts

Chances are, you've done end-of-novel project ideas in high school before. They're one of the most common projects in English classes, but more often than not, these projects go by without leaving any lasting impression.

Check out these prompts for The Great Gatsby, 1984, Macbeth/Hamlet/Othello, The Crucible, Beloved, and Hemingway, with a novel project example for each title, to make your next end-of-novel assignment one to remember. Each one comes with analytical, creative, and/or multimodal components, ties back to project literature you've already studied in class, and correlates to an AP Literature skill: Figurative Language, Structure, Literary Argumentation, Character, Narration, or Setting.

The Great Gatsby

• Symbolism in Color Close Reading (Figurative Language).
• Party Planning Gone Wrong One-Pager + Timeline (Structure).

1984

• The Power of Language (Figurative Language).
• Big Brother Is Watching Podcast (Literary Argumentation).

Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello

• Tragic Hero Comparative Essay (Literary Argumentation).
• Character's Diary (Character).

The Crucible

• Then and Now Essay (Setting).
• Courtroom Scene + Analysis (Narration).

Beloved

• Analytical: How does the structure of Beloved reflect the psychology of trauma (Structure)?
• Creative: retell one scene in Beloved from an alternate character's perspective (Character).

Hemingway

• Analytical: In one of his late short stories, explore Hemingway's iceberg theory: the meaning in what isn't said (Narration).
• Creative: choose a Hemingway short story to imitate at the sentence level, with a reflection analyzing his stylistic features (Figurative Language).

Want to learn more about the 14-day humanities program at Oxford and Cambridge? Reach out to learn more about Indigo at Oxbridge.

How to Choose the Right Format for Your Goals

If your literature research idea excites you, consider what kind of literature projects fit your interests and goals.

Ideally, start thinking about projects in the spring of your junior year, which gives you a buffer over the summer for research. AP Research papers count 75% of the final class score, with 25% for the oral defense, so the earlier you settle on a topic, the better. Students interested in Indigo at Oxbridge, the 14-day humanities research program at Oxford and Cambridge, can apply for a summer spot.

How a Literature Project Strengthens Your College Application

Some selective college applications encourage a writing sample: Columbia asks for just one piece of writing, and Bates asks for three pages of poetry or five of fiction. If you're applying Early Decision or Early Action, you'll need a piece you're proud of soon, since UNC Chapel Hill opens EA on October 15, all eight Ivy League schools open ED or EA on November 1, and many selective liberal arts colleges open on November 15. 

A portfolio isn't necessary. In my view, admissions officers would rather see one really good piece than a selection of so-so ones.

Beyond application requirements, a literature project can serve multiple functions in your college app:

• In your Common App activities list, a completed project earns recognition as a concrete outcome. A podcast, a portfolio of stories, a literary magazine, or a 5,000-word research paper is an impressive outcomes that distinguish your Common App extracurriculars.
• If you work with a mentor on a project, the experience can lead to a specific and strong recommendation. Teachers and mentors see lots of generic descriptions of high school literature classes, but they can speak volumes about a student they've watched draft, revise, and produce a polished, thoughtful, challenging project.
• If you're stuck for Common App essay ideas, your literature project is a great source. Consider what sparked your interest, your favorite quotations, and the challenges you overcame. Indigo Research's guide to the college application essay has more on turning a project into essay material.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best literature research paper topics?

Dystopian fiction, postcolonial literature, tragic hero archetypes, and the history of banned books are all strong starting areas. Within each, narrow the topic to something arguable, such as how a dystopian prediction holds up today or how ideas about heroism have shifted. See the topic list above for specific, ready-to-use questions in each category.

Should a literature research project be analytical or creative?

Most literature research projects are analytical. However, you may want to use the project as an opportunity to explore the craft of writing. For example, a short story collection might include a reflective statement explaining how close reading of a particular author influenced your own craft, such as sentence structure, diction, or characterization. Creative projects can be a great addition to an application because they provide another outlet to demonstrate analytical skills.

How long should a literature research paper be?

If you're writing the paper as part of your English class, ask your teacher, but typically these essays run 3 to 5 pages. If it's for an AP Literature project, the AP Research paper is 4,000 to 5,000 words (about 16 to 20 double-spaced pages), and the IB EE should be no more than 4,000 words. An independent project meant for a college portfolio, publication, or writing contest will likely run closer to the AP Research length than the classroom minimum.

Can I use a literature project in my college application?

Yes. The project itself can come up on your Common App activities list, or provide material for a supplemental application essay or Common App personal statement. Receiving recognition for the project, such as placing in a writing contest or publishing it in a journal, is a strong way to show your work from a different angle.

When should I pick a research paper topic?

Ideally, you'll begin thinking about your topic as soon as possible so you have plenty of time to write, edit, and revise. If you're hoping to include the final product in your application, consider when you plan to apply, since Early Decision and Early Action deadlines fall in October and November and projects completed before then can be referenced on an application and discussed in interviews.

How do I choose a research topic?

Revisit the three-part filter from earlier (interest, feasibility, admissions signal), then narrow your topic into an actual question:

• Can I narrow my topic into a research question? A research project should explore an arguable question using textual evidence and outside research. An interesting topic, such as the way women are portrayed in literature, isn't as strong as an arguable research question, such as how Shakespearean tragedies portray female characters who rebel against societal expectations.
• What kind of analysis am I hoping to undertake? Consider feminist, historical, postcolonial, psychological, rhetorical, and comparative criticism. Choose an approach that fits your research question; don't pick a lens and try to fit your research into it.