Papers must be 6-8 pages long, and include at least 5 scholarly sources. Similarly, the paper must conform to MLA format. If this style of citation is new to you, the librarians can help with that, as well.
It is critical that you choose a topic which interests you, as you are going to be working on it for the majority of the term. It is also critical that you think of your work as a research project: one which aims to answer a question or intervene in a debate which is current in the scholarship of young adult literature. Think of your audience as being no longer just your classmates and the instructor, but also including the critics whom you will be reading in the course of your research.