Week 7 (Oct 4-10)

Mon Oct 4

Revisions and the Reverse Outline.

Introduction to Unit 2. What are you curious about? What bothers you? What do you want to learn more about? And are you still curious at all?!

HW:

READ & Annotate in Perusall: The Assignment labeled “Curiosity & Research.” It contains two pieces, so you’ll need to be sure to read/annotate both:

  • Wierszewski, “Research Starts with a Thesis Statement” from Bad Ideas about Writing
  • The Guardian, “Schools are Killing Curiosity”

WRITE a post for OpenLab: In at least 300 words, address the following:

  • What is something you were interested in when you were a kid? Are you still interested in that topic? How did asking questions help you learn more about that topic?  
  • If so, how has your curiosity changed and grown over the years? And what role did the educational system play in your curiosity (good or bad)? 
  • If you are not interested in this topic anymore, what do you think happened to that interest? Do you remember the specific time you LOST interest?  What did you become interested in instead (and why)?
  • CATEGORY: Curiosity

Wed Oct 6

Doing research to find answers to questions, not to prove a point we’ve already decided is “the truth.”

How to do a KWL+ to start your research.

HW:

READ AND ANNOTATE on Perusall: “A Talk to Teachers” by James Baldwin. There’s an Assignment Alert attached to the end of this piece for you to respond to.

WRITE a post on OpenLab: Go back to the ideas you jotted down on the Padlet and pick one work on OR if you’ve thought of something new after reading the Baldwin speech (or having just had a couple of days to think about it), use that one instead. Pick one and ask a series of Journalist’s Questions about it: who, what, when, where, why, how. Generate as many questions as you can think of. Then do the same thing with a second idea. Once you get those two sets of questions done, create a Post and tell us:

  • Your first idea. List all those questions.
  • Your second idea. List all those questions.
  • Two or three sentences about which one you’re leaning toward getting more curious about and doing some research on and why you’re most interested in that one. OR if you don’t like either of those first to, do a third idea-question set!
  • The point is to let your brain go crazy!
  • CATEGORY: Questions

Week 8 (Oct 11-13)

Mon Oct 11: no class

Wed Oct 13

Rhetorical Analysis. Narrowing down your topic. Writing your Introduction.

  • What is your basic research question? This should not be something that has a yes or no answer. It should be something that has depth, twists and turns, different kinds of answers, dead-ends and re-thinking. Go back to your 5Ws and 1H to find the question that will drive all of your research. You might have a topic, even a very broad one, but what is it you’re trying to find out? For example, it’s not “what is global warming?” — that’s your topic; question might be “how will global warming affect urban farmers?” Another example, it’s not “why are video games not bad?” — again, that’s your topic; a question could be “how do I convince my parents this is a real profession?”
  • Why are you interested in this question?  (Feel free to talk about your own personal experience with the topic, or to tell an anecdote about your experience with this subject matter.) 
  • What do you expect to find in your research? (Why do you expect to find this?)
  • What will you do if you find information that goes completely against what you had expected to find? (Will you throw it out? Will you write about it anyway? Will you challenge your own assumptions?) 

HW:

WRITE and upload the Introduction to the Google Drive folder marked Unit 2 – Reflective Annotated Bibliography. You can do this on a Word doc and upload it, or you can create a new Google Doc and write it/paste it there. The idea is to start/have a document you’ll be able to add to (and that I can comment on) as you build your Reflective Annotated Bibliography.

To write your Introduction, build on the questions we went over in class (and which are just above) and the Padlet post you created. Spend some time on this– because this will serve as the first draft of the Introduction for your annotated bibliography!

And remember… there’s an example of this assignment at the very bottom of this page that you can use to help you create your Introduction.

READ & Annotate in Perusall: The assignment labeled “Integrating Quotes.”

Week 9 (Oct 18-24)

Mon Oct 18

Writing the Source Analyses. Incorporating Quotes.

HW:

ADD to the Google Doc/Word doc in the Reflective Annotated Bibliography folder: First Source Analysis. Here’s what it looks like:

  • Bibliographic entry.  Use something like easybib.com or the Purdue OWL (go to Research & Citation –> MLA) to help you get the formatting correct.
  • 1-paragraph Summary of the source’s content.
  • 2-3 Key Quotes.
  • 1-paragraph Rhetorical Analysis: Who is the author; what are their credentials? What kind of publication is this; who is the audience?  What is the genre; what did you expect to see in the text given the genre? What is the style and tone (funny, serious, satirical, combination, etc.)? Did the author support their points well or did they simply toss ideas out without any support? If it’s a visual text, how did the images and/or text and/or audio work together to create the text; what effect do you think it had on the audience? NOTE: This section is not about your own opinions of the ideas in the text; you get to do that in the next section. This section should be as objective and non-judgmental as you can make it.

Wed Oct 20

Integrating quotes.

HW:

ADD to the Google Doc/Word doc in the Reflective Annotated Bibliography folder: Second and Third Source Analysis.

Week 10 (Oct 25-31)

Mon Oct 25

Writing the Conclusion.

HW:

ADD to the Google Doc/Word doc in the Reflective Annotated Bibliography folder: Add your Conclusion. Your conclusion will do these things (reminder!)

  • You will summarize what you found in your research (summarize!).
  • You will tell readers what surprised you, or how your understanding of your question deepened or changed. (Spoiler: if the answer is “not at all”, you did not do enough research.) 
  • You will explain why what you learned is important.
  • You will explain who you think needs to know about it and why (Another spoiler: be specific! The answer can not be “everyone.” That is too big of an audience. Narrow it down to who needs to hear about it first!)

Wed Oct 27

Putting it all together. Workshop.

HW:

WRITE/POLISH the Google Doc/Word doc in the Reflective Annotated Bibliography folder. Look everything over, make sure it’s the way you want it… and it looks like it’s supposed to. And then ADD a Reviewer’s Memo to the very bottom.

Reminder about the Reviewer’s Memo (100-200 words). Add this at the very bottom of your Annotated Bibliography. Address these things:

  • This is what I intended to do: Here’s why I wrote it. What I hoped it would do. What I want people to take away from the piece.
  • This is how I feel about the project so far: how I think it’s going, what problems I’m having, what I think is working, and what I think I need help with, what I’m proud of, etc.
  • This is what I really could use feedback about: This can be anything you want to add. Things like what do you think is working? What is confusing? Have I met the Content Checklist elements? If this were your essay, what would you do next?

Week 11 (Nov 1-7)

Mon Nov 1

Content Check

HW:

WRITE a post on OpenLab: Two parts to this short (200 word) post.

  • Talk about your plan to complete Reflective Annotated Bibliography. What did you learn after the Content Check activity we did in class? Do you need to do a lot of revising? Of what sections? Do you still need to add things like more sources? The reflection/conclusion? In other words, what do you have left to do?
  • Talk about doing the Content Check activity. What did you learn? Was it easier to leave feedback when the writer was anonymous? Did working with the same people when you went back to look at your own RABs make you feel more comfortable? How was it overall?
  • Category: Content Check Activity

Wed Nov 3

Workshop day.

HW:

ADD in the Google Drive Folder: Just make sure you have a good draft of your RAB. If you want to leave me a message about it, add it to the very end and label it Note to Prof Blain. That will actually help me when I take a look to give you feedback.

Here’s an example of a Reflective Annotated Bibliography…

…sort of. This is from a different 1101 class and required four sources (this term, we’re only requiring three sources). But the layout is a good template for you to follow when you’re putting yours together.

Reflective Annotated Bibliography student paperDownload
Print this page