Post-Class Announcements Week #4
First off, let me remind everyone what is coming in next week:
* Portfolio #1 (bring to class, hand in)
* Research Proposal (email by class time next week)
(both of those are links to their full description)
I have an example of what a research proposal might look like after the jump! (and some other meandering thoughts...as usual!)
Before I get to the research proposal example, some thoughts on this mini-essay we're all working on right now:
It's hard! And purposefully so. The more interesting question to ask might be: why is this so hard? While there are many reasons why it might be so difficult (I didn't tell you exactly what you should write, etc), what I'm hoping we're seeing is that there's a lot more to writing than just "clearly expressing" an idea. When you are on your own, 90% of the battle is figuring out just exactly what idea you are trying to express in the first place!
Take for example a typical essay prompt. For our class, it might have looked something like this:
Discuss the ways in which Newkirk applies the concept of "taste" in relation to student writing. Do you agree with his conclusion? Why or why not? Use specific quotes from the text.
In this prompt, the task is fairly simple. All you have to do is fill in the blanks, repeat what Tom writes, state whether you agree or don't agree, and then state a reason or two why. Oh, and toss in a few quotes here and there to make the instructor happy.
The question I would push is this: Looking at the above prompt, who is really writing that essay? The student? Or the person who wrote the prompt?
True, the student ends up putting the words down on paper, but what it ultimately says has already been decided by someone else. The format it takes has pretty much been decided. The purpose of it has already been decided (i.e., showing that you actually read the book). Is the student really the "writer" here? What really goes on when we write, anyway? Are we ever really free of someone or something else nudging us to write one way or another?
Remember that in our class, the goal is not necessarily to produce the most perfect paper ever written. As I said at the start, our goal this semester is to think more intelligently about this thing we call "writing." What is it? How do we do it? What goes into it? What prevents us from doing it? and so on and so forth.
(and I might also point out here that rarely outside of undergraduate classes will you ever see "essay prompts." Once you reach a certain point, you're on your own when it comes to defining a topic, what you're going to say about it, how you're going to say it, what conclusions you're going to come to, and in what form it all takes. Even in the so called "hard sciences." This is, generally, how "academic work" happens! Don't you all want to be professors now?)
Generally, I'm incredibly proud of you all right now because regardless of what we're saying about Newkirk, I think we're also starting to think about what really goes on when each of us sits down and tries to write. That, to me, is the most important thing we can get out of this class.
OK! I promised a research proposal example, and here one is:
As stated on the webpage, there are essentially three major things that have to make it into the proposal. These are:
What? (topic)
How? (method)
Why? (what's your point, Walter?)
To answer the "what," I'm asking you to formulate a "research question." The example on the webpage is:
What cultural biases are used in campus alcohol awareness campaigns?
This is a question that does not result in a simple "yes/no" answer, and one that requires some sort of interpretation on the part of the author. BINGO! That's what we're after. We're after a research question that you will be able to answer.
(this is also why research questions like "is the death penalty good?" do not work. You can answer that by saying yes or no)
So to continue on, this is how the above research question would fit into a research proposal:
It is without question that the use of alcohol on college campuses is a topic of much debate in the media. In response to these debates, many college campuses around the nation have instituted various sorts of alcohol awareness programs to help confront the issue. But measuring how effective these programs are can be problematic. In order to more deeply understand the awareness program response, we have to look more closely at how these campaigns are composed. One way we can understand how these campaigns work is to understand what, if any, cultural biases and values are built into the campaigns. Therefore, my research question is: what cultural biases are used in campus alcohol awareness campaigns? I will start by analyzing two different campus alcohol awareness programs. From there, I will discuss the role that cultural biases might play in these campaigns, as well as attempting to understand whether any cultural biases might cause some students to resist and ignore the campaigns. This is an important question to ask because it helps shed light on why such campaigns may or may not be effective, ultimately suggesting alternative ways of dealing with campus alcoholism. Further, this research is important because it might help us understand how texts we encounter in our every day lives either cause us to change, or cause us to ignore the message.
This proposal is 225 words long. That's on the longish side, but takes care of what needs to be taken care of. As you can see, it provides some context (that is, what is going on), while also discussing the nature of the research question, why it matters, and how the writer is going to attempt to answer it. If you can keep your proposal around 150 words, that should be sufficient.
Please e-mail me these proposals by class time on Tuesday. Once I get it, I'll give you some thoughts/ideas, and that should give you a chance to revise it/re-write it as we move ahead.
Other than that, read the first chapter of Thandeka and work on those first portfolios! I'll see you all next week.