Stage one involves collecting a mountain of textual evidence, ideas, thoughts, and interpretations. You will create a typed, single-spaced document, at least three pages in length, consisting of a series of numbered entries in no particular order. Most will be quotations from the texts—the novel(s) you’ve chosen to work with--but these entries can also be general thoughts and musings, ideas you wrote down during discussion that you want to develop, and questions you have that you know you will have to answer. (Your goal will be to come up with at least 10 of these; more would be even better.) Under each typed passage or big idea, type out a series of notes (I find it helps to assign each sub-note a letter). What does the passage reveal? What is the significance of a particular word, phrase, or image? How does it speak to a specific conflict or theme? Where do you think the passage (or the idea) might fit into your larger argument? I often find that some of these individual notes later become larger ideas that may or may not get positioned near the particular passage that inspired them.