WHERE IS YOUR PASSION?
“WHERE IS YOUR PASSION” by Chris Lasher CC BY 2.0

Week 7:

  • Dates: Monday, 10/16 and Wednesday, 10/18
  • Meeting Info: This course meets in person for 100 minutes twice per week, Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00-1:40pm, in Namm 602A. By the end of each week, I will post an agenda that will outline the next week’s work. It will include instructions for you and links to readings, discussion questions, and other work. We will work on developing community both in our classroom and in our online written community.

Objectives

  • To find topics for our Project 2 research
  • To narrow our topics into research questions

To Do Before Week 7

Just in case you haven’t already, please:

  • Catch up on any readings or discussions you’ve missed following Project 1–you can review the Weekly Class Agendas to see what we covered. If you haven’t yet submited Project 1: Education Narrative and the cover letter (paper copy distributed in class), please reach out to me to discuss a plan.

To-Do This Week

Monday, 10/16

Texts:

  • Reading/Writing Resource Essay: “Research Starts With a Thesis Statement” by Emily Wierszewski, pages 231- 235 in Bad Ideas About Writing (note that the title of the book, Bad Ideas About Writing tells us that each chapter title is a bad idea–so thinking that research starts with a thesis statement is a bad idea)
  • Reading/Writing Resource Presentation “What Is Research?” by Prof. Carrie Hall
  • Reading/Writing Resource: City Tech Library’s Guide to Developing a Research Question to help you narrow down and finalize your research question

Writing:

In Class:

  • Continue the discussion to brainstorm about what sparks our interest?
    • what’s your major or potential major? or job? or career? what’s a community you’re a member of?
      • what are interests you have that you want to pursue in that field?
      • what are big issues in that field right now?
      • what are important texts in that field?
    • what are big issues in the news that you want to understand better?
    • what are you passionate about and what do you need to know more about to become an advocate for your passion?
    • global warming; how scrolling is affecting my well-being; astrophysician dream job; building a path for my future esp toward owning a business; fashion–thrifting; creative/art cultural aspects–learn more about certain artists; impact of digital technology on mental health; affects of COVID on mental health;
  • What is inquiry-based research? “open-ended question motivated by curiosity, whose goal is not to prove anything, but to discover salient ideas”–from “Research Starts With a Thesis Statement” by Emily Wierszewski, 233
  • What questions can we ask to begin our research? Why-questions, How-questions. What do you already know, and what do you want to know more about?
  • Developing research questions
    • start with a topic and shape it into a question that helps you get into the field you want to research
  • Search terms
    • try doing a google search and see what you get!
    • what new search terms can you find that will fine-tune your search to help you get better results?

Wednesday 10/18

Texts:

  • Video: “Writing an Annotated Bibliography” (City Tech Library)
  • Reading/Writing Resource Essay:  “Annotated Bibliography Breakdown” (Purdue OWL)
  • Reading/Writing Resource: “Annotated Bibliography” (Cornell University)
  • Read about research! Skim Alison C. Witte’s “Research Starts with Answers” in Bad Ideas About Writing, pp 226-230 (that’s the page numbers within the book–the page numbers in the actual file are a little different), paying attention to 228-229. (note that the title of the book, Bad Ideas About Writing, tells us that each of the chapter titles are themselves bad ideas about writing! But the content includes great ideas about writing!)
  • Find one source to add to your annotated bibliography and read it–and bring it to class either digitally or printed

Writing:

In Class:

  • Thursday, 10/26, 1-2:00pm, A209: Event for First Year Learning Communities. Come play a game inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the first year experience, eat pizza, meet students, maybe win a prize! Who is coming?
  • What is an annotated bibliography?
    • what is a bibliography? why do we use them?
    • what is an annotation? why do we use them?
  • Annotated Bibliography Resources:
  • Reflective Annotated Bibliography Examples:
  • How did we research?
    • If you haven’t started your research, begin by looking for one source
  • What did we find?
  • How do we write an annotation for our source?
    • If you found a source, begin writing or revising your annotation
  • Next steps:
    • Begin writing the introduction. This is where you write about why you are interested in the topic, how you found your way to it, what you want to get out of doing the research, etc.
    • Continue drafting the annotation for your first source
    • Find another source
    • Draft an annotation for your source
    • Continue to evaluate the sources you have chosen–do you need to replace any? What if you find better sources after you have written an annotation?