One question we've been kicking around as we work on an outline for the textbook is this:
Should the critical analysis paper come before the topic proposal?
So often, students don't do enough research before writing their topic proposals. I require them to demonstrate that there are relevant scholarly articles and that they are entering an existing debate, but it's a lot to ask when they haven't yet wrestled with critically reading sources and they are also writing their first argumentative essay of the semester.
I wonder if it wouldn't work better to have them write an argument about an article first, and from there move on to write the research proposal. The research proposal seems more complex to me.
Students would not necessarily have to have settled on a topic when they do their critical analysis paper. In fact, doing the paper could help lead toward a better topic.
What do you think?
Several semesters ago, I opted to have students write the critical analysis first, but rather than having them write the analysis on their particular question, I assigned an article that all students read and subsequently analyzed. Although the particulars are somewhat fuzzy, I remember the students felt somewhat rushed and I felt as well that perhaps they were not given enough time to seriously think about what they might write about. All that to say, perhaps I'm not a good example given that students did not write the analysis on their topic, and my reading strategies unit was not as well developed or coherent.
It would be interesting to try putting the the CA first as a more exploratory exercise.
I've taught the Critical Analysis before the Research Proposal several times. There are many reasons to do so. However, there are also reasons to do the Proposal first. After trying it both ways, I've found either approach can work well, and in the context of the textbook it might make more sense to do the Proposal first.
That said, here are some thoughts on why it makes sense to write a Critical Analysis first.
1. Assuming one covers reading strategies early in the semester, the Critical Analysis is a good follow up assignment to the Paraphrase Assignment, and allows the students to put all those skills to work in a focused way.
2. Also, summarizing and paraphrasing are an important part of writing an effective Critical Analysis, so it allows students to practice summarizing an article (which I ask them to do in the introduction) and to paraphrase content (and selectively quote) as they analyze the article. This helps to confirm the importance of the reading strategies that I teach very early in the semester.
3. Writing a Critical Analysis on a topic of interest for the students can prepare them to write a more thoughtful Research Proposal. Of course, this assumes that the instructor still introduces research questions/topic selection as part of the Critical Analysis assignment. I try to get my students thinking of possible topics in the first week.
4. If the Research Proposal is taught after the Critical Analysis, students are more likely (we hope!) to evaluate/analyze the sources that they include in their Proposal bibliography.
5. Writing the Critical Analysis first can help students engage in the idea of "entering the conversation" of a topic early in the semester, helping students to see that sources are "points of entry" rather than just a means to support your argument.
All that said, I think either approach can work, and it's just a matter of how the instructor frames the assignments and the progression of assignments.
As I write this, I find myself wondering if the book should be chapter-ed according to assignment. It might be limiting to do so. But this is a topic for another blog entry.
The critical analysis was put after to get student s to pick a topic for a proposal early in the term and use it the whole semester. One of the things we know about teaching writing is that you need to have some knowledge before you can write about it well. For example to write on, “ Borromean Rings are the key to molecular computing,” you need to at least need to know what molecular switches are. After the bacic work is done for the proposal, the CA focuses expanded research on the topic including reading more articles/documents that are on the topic. This additional research ideally leads to a fuller understanding of the topic/issue. I have on occasion had student realize after the critical analysis that the topic is not workable in a semester given their starting point. I let them change topics at that point, but they feel that the assignments were moving them forward to the goal of a research project
If they do CA first, students tend to think it is another unconnected exercise to be finished because they do not see how it fits into the larger plan.
One of the important reasons to do the proposal first in the memo format is to prod students out of the mistaken idea that a proposal is simply a very general summary of their view on a topic instead of an argument for writing on a topic.
I see benefits to both approaches. It seems to me the research proposal builds on skills you'd develop in the critical analysis more than the reverse. I do agree that it's probably better for them to write the CA on their semester topics, but they could use the paper as a way of exploring their topic before writing the full-blown research proposal.
What other ideas do people have for getting students to read more widely about their topic before writing the research proposal?
I prefer having the Topic Proposal first. There can be issues with students not getting the best sources or best topics by having it first, but I do my best to address those issues by holding conferences with students before their Topic Proposal do. My students have said they like those conferences, and I have found that it gets them to think more about what topic will work, enforcing the importance of good research, fixing mistakes they can make in choosing a topic, etc. So they're hopefully well prepared after that and writing the Topic Proposal to move on to researching further. There is also the benefit to them being more involved with their research when it's a topic they are (hopefully) interested in and have chosen themselves.
Another benefit to having the Critical Analysis after the Topic Proposal is that it can give more time to grade the Topic Proposal and get any further kinks out the topics students have chosen. I try to capitalize on this and also use the Critical Analysis as a way to introduce better reading and analysis of sources by having students write it as a group. The whole class looks at the same article, but each group arrives at its own analysis of the article in a paper they write together. I've had pretty good success with this and by discussing a sample after, to make sure students are on the right track with organizing and arguing, as well as evaluating sources well. It seems to help them to do a better job with their Comparison Contrast assignment as well.
But even if we have things organized in the book to put the Critical Analysis after the Topic Proposal, it's not like an individual teacher cannot structure things as they need to. They should hopefully still have that flexibility. On that note, Catherine, are you organizing things by paper assignments? For some reason I thought you were structuring chapters around skills or concepts we go over in the course, with a separate section for the curriculum or assignments. But perhaps I am remembering wrong (or that is just an idea that was kicked around in my meeting).
I'm only passingly familiar with the proposal as designed in 1120, so the model I offer for comparison may overlap a little (that I can see with my passing familiarity) or a lot (that you may see with your more intimate familiarity.
Paper proposals in RHET 1120, which I also use in WRIT 3180 (defunct), contain five parts:
A statement of topic for the paper
A statement of audience for the paper
A statement of rationale for the paper
A statement of purpose for the paper
A bibliography.
Topic is easy: Vegetarianism. The next three are lenses or filters derived from audience: Writing about vegetarianism for whom? Writing about vegetarianism to resolve what question or respond to what problem for the reader? Writing about vegetarianism to do what for the reader (to evaluate X, to critique Y, to persuade that Z).
The bibliography, then, flows from the audience filter as well: what sources would this audience consider valuable, reliable, credible? An after-dinner speech, written for the relaxed, non-specialist, can cite TIME Magazine and Bartlett's Quotations; a UROP proposal, written for the researcher, needs a research-based bibliography. A paper feeding into a human nutrition practicum may site research, government reports and trade magazines.
When CW asks: "So often, students don't do enough research before writing their topic proposals. I require them to demonstrate that there are relevant scholarly articles and that they are entering an existing debate, but it's a lot to ask when they haven't yet wrestled with critically reading sources and they are also writing their first argumentative essay of the semester." -- I agree wholeheartedly. But I also think that some of these answers come from teaching them to inhabit, more fully, the imaginative space of the audience as part of the proposal, including a basic grasp of the information resources and the voices in discussion before that audience.
"What other ideas do people have for getting students to read more widely about their topic before writing the research proposal?" -- I can't say that I know how to answer this, though I would say I weight, instead, getting students to become familiar with the information resources and the voices in discussion for an audience by structuring the proposal in this way.
In a lot of ways, I think we choose an audience, first, as writers, and we choose a topic second. This is surely true of writing for academic journals (where we almost never pick a topic and hunt for a journal that will take it; rather, we pick a community of scholars we want to speak to, through their journal, and set out to contribute to that community by answering the open questions in that community of researchers).
That said, like Neal, I am a big conferencer -- key to my pedagogy, really, because I think I can work through some of the dynamism of understanding audience with students, many of whom simply can't imagine what it means to be (say) someone else.
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NR: I love your last questions, which again point to the structure of the book.
Neil, we are trying to get away from having specific assignments in the book, because pretty much all the instructors said they write their own assignment sheets and did not want them in the book. Still, we were thinking about whether some chapters should focus on specific types of papers, the way Kate Maurer's writing for the arts book does. So the material generally taught with the Topic Proposal could go in a chapter called "Writing a Topic Proposal," or it could go in a chapter called something like "Refining and Developing Your Topic."
This also raises the question of where the sample papers go.
A lot of people asked for more examples (and students often ask for examples) of the kinds of papers they're being asked to write. Many people wanted annotated example papers. At least one group suggested that we include one annotated paper and one not-annotated paper for each assignment. Do those go in each chapter (which implies each chapter matching up with a specific assignment), or do they go in an appendix instructors can draw from?
As we kick this around, I keep thinking we need a separate resource for instructors. A website, like a wiki, where people could share assignment sheets and samples and exercises, would be so useful.
It is tricky to set this up for use by so many different people and their approaches, that's for sure. I would think structuring chapters around concepts and ideas we are supposed to cover is the best way to go for this. Case in point, I think your chapter idea of "Refining and Developing Your Topic" is less restrictive and more adaptive than "Writing a Topic Proposal," which is more like how our current textbook is set up. Or at least if you followed through with the approach the two titles implies.
I would think we could go the same way with evaluating sources, writing more clearly, even writing more effective introductions, etc. You could also include writing examples/excerpts in all those chapters that would not have to apply to specific types of papers either (which could add some variety when discussing writing with clarity, etc.).
That way, you could put paper examples in a separate section at the end of the book (apart from the conceptual chapters), which could be updated as needed. I believe this was discussed in one of our meetings, and it seems like a good idea. It's a resource we all have access to without having to maintain another resource on the web (like the wiki Catherine mentioned), but it would also mean we wouldn't absolutely have to use each assignment. Looking at our other discussion points, for instance, we could have a sample of a Critical Analysis Paper, Comparison Contrast Paper, and a Literature Review. We could put those in roughly the order most people take, but even if they weren't in the order that a certain class takes, it would not matter, as you could assign each one separately. We could also have more than one example of each assignment.
Hope that makes sense, and that all this discussion is helping, Catherine.
As always, a good discussion. I also prefer to do the topic proposal prior to the critical analysis as the proposal gets them doing preliminary research and often helps them find direction. I also see a lot of benefit in doing the critical analysis on an article the student is actually considering using for his/her own research project. While I see the benefits some are saying occur when the critical analysis is done first, I hesitate to do anything that delays getting students started on their own actual research projects. Students tend to underestimate the time good research takes, and the farther into the semester we go before getting them started the less time they have to conduct thorough research. (As an aside, when reviewing petitions I'm always amazed to see syllabi from other institutions that begin the "research paper" assignment in week 11 or 12--sometimes 13--of the semester. How can any decent research be done in so short a time?) I also continue to emphasize that everything we write in 1120 is an argument, and I have trouble seeing the argument in some of the approaches (although I probably just haven't read the blog entries carefully enough to see it).
In terms of whether we're organizing by assignment or by concept, we do need to remember that every year we have many new instructors who have never taught in our program. Because we're delivering a lib ed course required by all, we have to try and maintain some consistency while still allowing some freedom in approaches. I agree with Catherine that we need a resource for instructors, but I think a printed resource that has the elements "vetted" for inclusion would be most helpful. Faculty could create their own resources from the ones that are provided, but simply allowing anything to be posted as a worthwhile or successful assignment or sample paper might not be the best approach.
Yes, this is the trouble: I definitely see the value of having a topic established early. At the same time, the research proposal strikes me as asking for too much too soon. It makes multiple, difficult demands: Research thoroughly, paraphrase, write CSC paragraphs, write an argument, analyze not one but at least three articles, synthesize at least three articles, and cite them all correctly. Just from a perspective of building skills, I'd make the argument that analyzing one should come before synthesizing three. But I agree it'd be best to analyze an article that will actually wind up in the final paper.
Jill, are you saying that, for the sake of new instructors, the book should contain assignment sheets? Or that the chapters should focus on specific assignments? Or that there should be a second, vetted, printed resource of assignment sheets?
Let me play "critic" for a second and analyze the language on the table. We keep calling it a topic proposal: students propose the topic that they will follow in the semester.
But at some level, it is also (?) a paper proposal, though the students aren't, possibly, completely aware yet of what it means to propose a college paper. In high school, they picked topics and wrote five paragraph themes; we are through the far side of that in this class, but they don't know that when they propose a topic. Am I correct so far?
There is a modicum of research on topic selection and topic narrowing in composition classrooms. One of the disconnects between typical help given by a librarian to a composition student in working with topic selection is in how they work to help a student narrow a topic. I can role play it, a little:
Student: "I'd like to write a paper about global warming."
Librarian: "That's very broad."
Student: "How about 'the effects of global warming'?"
Librarian: "That's better, but you'll still get a million sources. Maybe we could narrow further: by geographic region ('effects of global warming on the North Pole'), or by species ('effects of global warming on polar bears')?" The Librarian works to narrow the topic so that the student can work with a manageable number of sources. See: https://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2011/04/the_library_and_the_research_essay.html
By contrast, following the "he/she/they say" Gerald Graff model, what we as writing instructors seek, as students narrow a topic, is a sense of the diversity of argumentative positions available around a topic -- a full spectrum, above and beyond pro/con. (This is why so many comp classes and students at other schools draw from the Opposing Viewpoints reference books: see http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/04/15/librarians_try_to_improve_student_research_habits_by_teaching_visual_literacy)
When a comp teacher declares a topic out of bounds, it isn't really the topic that is the problem; rather, the teacher believes that the spectrum of argumentative positions typically taken on that topic available are not rich enough to allow the typical student to perform well.
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I'm not sure what I'm suggesting here, except to say that if librarians have a different vision of topic selection than writing teachers, surely students do, too. I see some options:
1. Rename the assignment. Given what skills Catherine sees necessary, it seems to me that the assignment is asking more than "what topic would you like to pursue."
2. Divide the assignment into two. One assignment remains a topic proposal, purely arguing for the merits of a topic. Another is more properly understood as a paper proposal, which means not just topic, but also audience, rationale, and purpose, as I see it (and in some small sense, genre if there is flexibility in that).
Given Catherine's description of the skills required ("Research thoroughly, paraphrase, write CSC paragraphs, write an argument, analyze not one but at least three articles, synthesize at least three articles, and cite them all correctly. Just from a perspective of building skills, I'd make the argument that analyzing one should come before synthesizing three"), this sounds like the skeleton system of a paper proposal, as I am describing it, and far more than a topic proposal.
Sequence, then, might be:
1. Topic Proposal (1-3 paragraphs, memo form)
2. Critical Analysis
3. Paper Proposal (One paragraph each for topic, audience, rationale, purpose, plus bibliography)
Students will see how their topic paragraph is transformed by the process of critical analysis between #1 and #3. Students will see how their grasp of rationale and purpose shifts from proposal to draft. Students will see, in other words, that writing is transformed by the act of continued research and engagement with voices of the Other.
Something needs clarifying; mayvbe it's just terminology; maybe it's just sequence. Maybe it's more.
David, I have had them do something like that -- come up with a preliminary topic proposal early in the semester that is not a full, argumentative paper (not a replacement for what you're calling the research paper proposal - they still had to do that). But I didn't move the critical analysis assignment as you're suggesting when I did, and I think it's worth thinking about that.
I like your idea of the CA before the Topic Proposal. I also like the idea of starting with critical reading exercises, then analysis, then research exercises, then topic proposals. Last fall I experimented with requiring that students write a paragraph of "source qualification" for each of five sources they wanted to use in their papers. Each SQ was preceded by the complete MLA citation for the source. Here is an example; it was used to qualify the Carr article we have used for a few years in class:
"I propose to use this article to support ideas in my paper on whether or not hyper-linking is actually changing how we think. I think it will be a worthy article to use. The author of the article, Nicholas Carr, a former editor of the Harvard Business Review, has written two books and many articles on the effects of technology on humans and their endeavors, especially in business and commerce. This particular article has been included in several anthologies since it was published in 2008 and it seems to be one of the most-respected early articles on this subject. It was originally published in The Atlantic, which is a commercial magazine (and Web site) devoted to analysis of politics, economics, and cultural ideas. While the article seems to raise more questions than it answers, it is proving very useful to me in developing my ideas, and I believe it is the cornerstone of my research."