This week, we’re just beginning our research project, the reflective annotated bibliography. As you get comfortable with the details of the project, what you need to know is that you’re going to do some research and share it in the form of a bibliography (you’ve probably done one of these any time you had to list your sources for something you wrote) plus annotations, or notes, about that source (again, get to know those details in the Project 2 description and the additional details). For Project 3, you’ll be conveying what you learned in your research to a group of your choosing using a genre of your choosing.

But before we can get started with any of that, let’s think of what we want to learn more about. We read the Declaration of Independence and Layli Long Soldier’s “38” as examples of a texts written in protest, so we can think more about protest, or about stances people take to stand up for (or against) something.

For this discussion, add a comment in which you list different topics–whether you understand them well yet or not–that you might have to or want to take a stand on in your studies, your job, career, or in dream job. What are choices you would need to make running your own business, working as a designer, healing patients, etc.

When we have a longer list of these ideas, we can start thinking about which we want to learn more about, and then we can start our research to find out more about the topic, so that we can become more knowledgeable and share that knowledge with people who need to know it (that’s Project #3).

As more of you comment, we’ll start to see topics trending. Also, if you want to reply to a classmate instead of directly to this post, you can click the REPLY to their comment. That would be great to do if you want to build on topics already mentioned in classmates’ comments.

We’re using the Declaration of Independence and “38” as texts to get us to think about a topic we would stand up for, so your topic has to be controversial, right? Well, here’s how I think of it:

Imagine you’re suddenly in charge at work–let’s say at a restaurant. You’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a while, and you have some big ideas you want to put into action. One of them is to use only food grown locally–within 200 miles. Does that sound controversial? You have great reasons–it keeps jobs local, it lets you get to know the farmers supplying your food, it has a much smaller environmental impact, there’s less taste and nutritional loss because it goes from farm to you much faster, among other benefits. Who could argue with that? Well, whoever does the budget for the kitchen might have something to say about it. But the idea itself isn’t controversial. Asking a research question like “why should I buy locally grown foods for my restaurant?” will give you lots of great information, and maybe even some you could use in conversation with whomever does the budget.

So think about something that is important to you, something that you wish you had the power to do–or maybe even really do have the power to do, whether as a current student, in your current or next few jobs, or even in your dream job. As you do this work, keep Alison C. Witte’s “Research Starts with Answers” in mind.

In your comment:

  1. Make a big list of possible ideas–one of these ideas will spark something for you, and whatever you cast aside might spark someone else’s idea.
  2. Choose two that you could imagine working on and for each
    1. write about what interests you about it, what you know about it already, whether you think it is controversial or not, what the controversy is as you currently understand it if there are any.
    2. Write about where would you go to learn more.
    3. Who would want to know more about this topic?
    4. What are some keywords or search terms you would use to find information or resources about it?