The Semester Research Paper

Writing to change

The most important pre-step of this assignment is to read the chapter in your textbook.  The following is just a summary and a reminder of that information. 

Step 1

Choose a Topic:  at the start of last semester you were asked to select a topic that interested and challenged you. You were told that your interest and attitude would determine your enthusiasm toward your research.  The topic selected had to be centered on an issue that impacts the society we live in.  Make sure that your subject selection is manageable, not too narrow or too broad. This would be a great time to create your KWL-What do you Know about the subject, what do you need to Know about the subject and lastly save the last step after you have completed your search. 

Step 2

Finding the Information:  As a journal activity you needed to collect at least fifteen (15) primary sources.  Make sure you check the quality of the sources that you select.  During this fact finding mission you needed to create a summary and evaluation of each article selected. Only ten percent of your material could come from a nonacademic internet site.  This is a great time to create your Bibliography.

Step 3

Develop a Thesis:  As you critical think about your subject develop a working thesis (this was a journal topic) . This will help you limit the scope of the material you have collected as well as help you create a working outline.

Step 4 

Develop a tentative outline:  The purpose of the outline is to help you think through your topic logically before you start writing.  Organization is critical.  The final outline will be the first thing your readers will see. 

Step 5

Write your first draft:  After you have collected enough information, created a clear working thesis statement and developed an outline it is now time to create your paper.  In your introduction make sure that you give the reader background information and state your thesis statement.  The body of the paper is used to develop your points. And in your conclusion make sure that you summarize and remind your readers of your main points.  

Step 6

Create your Bibliography:  Make sure to use MLA format for all sources you used for this paper.  You must document every source you used. 

The Research Paper: The following is a list of requirements that your essay packet must have.

Planning and Prewriting technique:  You may select any of the prewriting techniques used in the last year (i.e. looping).

The paper will include

Cover page

Outline page

The body of the paper

Bibliography

              One Peer review

              Lab /tutor review

             Grade profile sheet (make sure you complete the top portion)

The Research check list:

Make sure your thesis is clearly developed and concise.

Is the outline logical?

Is the argument presented in logical sequence?

Are all sources properly cited?

Did I proof read the paper and are all of my arguments proven?

The research paper is due on the day of your exam conference.  If you have any questions please make sure to email me. 

Project Text

Literary Analysis

In one way or another, people respond to the arts.  Audiences may applaud a dancer, gripe about a book or a film, or give a standing ovation to a musician.    Because the arts are complex, writing about them requires, in our case, careful reading.    You probably know a good deal more about narrative techniques than you are aware of knowing.  Until we are asked to write about a narrative carefully, most of us read them with unconscious ease, just as we ride a bicycle without precisely knowing how we do it.  This however, does not allow you to hold things up to scrutiny, to analyze or improve your understanding.  The main purpose of this form of writing is to share some insight about a work to the reader.  In order to be successful you have been asked to frame the time period and know the work.

Frame the time period:  The can be accomplished by asking what was going on during this time frame that the author incorporated into the text.  The resulting research material found can help support a point. Or it can help in understanding a point being made.   Make sure to take good notes much of this data can be used as primary evidence.  Make sure that you use reliable sources.    

Know the Work:  Reading a text more than once is critical in creating an analysis. The first reading is to gain an overall impression.  The next read and annotate.   The second time through look at the author’s style, the way he/she created the setting, the characters, the theme or the plot.   Make sure to take good notes and evaluate everything you read.  This step will help you to refresh your memory as you attempt to formulate ideas.  

Terms to remember:

Theme is the statement about life that a particular work shares with the reader. It is the controlling or dominant issue or idea.  It can sometimes be stated or it can be implied.  A theme must be expressed in a complete statement (i.e. in…the theme of jealousy is used to show the demise of mankind). 

Symbol an object, place characteristic or phenomenon that suggests one or more things (usually abstract) in addition to itself.  For example the dove is a symbol of peace. 

Imagery refers to the words or phrases that a writer uses to paint his canvas and appeal to the reader’s senses. 

Antagonist is the person or thing working against the protagonist.

Character analysis may analyze the internal conflict that character has with the theme.  Conflict is the problem or struggle in the story that triggers action.  There are five different types of conflict. 

Person vs. person: one character iin a story is in conflict with one or more of the other characters.

Person vs. society: A character is in conflict with some element of society, the accepted way of doing things

Person vs. self: a character faces conflicting inner choices.

Person vs. nature: A character is in conflict with some natural happening.

Person vs. fate: a character must battle what seems to be an uncontrollable problem. 

Project Text

Project Text:  You are asked to interpret a major text through close reading and research.  Our “text” is A Lesson before Dying and Invisible Man.  We’ll approach this text through a number of critical sources, classroom discussions and activities, individual student essays, and group projects. 

Project Text will allow students to explore students to explore the larger implications of the subject of analysis.  It will also allow students to move comprehensively and critically into the final research paper.  Project Text should culminate in at least 2,000 words draft processing. 

Writing Assignment

Writing Assignment:

Using the selected text for your course, select one of the following areas; Character analysis, Theme or Symbolism and write a literary analysis.

Character analysis:   Most students can analyze characters rather skillfully. Perhaps that’s because well drawn characters are like real people, and we respond to them with the expertise of a lifetime of knowing people.  Create an essay in which you look at an internal conflict, a moment of clarity or personality development.

Symbolism:  an object, place characteristic or phenomenon that suggests one or more things (usually abstract) in addition to itself.  Select one symbol and write an essay showing the meaning and importance of the symbol.

Theme: Identify the theme of the novel and show the different ways this idea is expressed and supported and developed in the novel.

 As you plan and pre-write think about the scope of the issue; try to identify causal chains.  All final packets (hard copies) and final copy must be handed in (during class) and posted on the blog by 5p.m. on the due date.

Planning and Pre writing

Use K.W.L., and cubing prewriting technique to generate details.  After examining your raw material identify two or three points (thesis statement) that might focus an essay.   Your prewriting should identify the purpose, audience and point of view on the selected subject. 

Peer critiques – you must have at least two critique (for the hard copy), four blog responses and one lab review of your essay.     Voice/ tone, audience, meaning, evidence, structure, and organization are the areas readers must comment on.

Project Space

Project Space

Project Space: This project considers the socioeconomics and politics of space.  While space can be defined as urban, community, and personal, it may also be institutional (e.g., the university and hospital).  We’re interested in how space shapes our conception of world, self, and other.

Project Space requirements: reading, fieldwork, group presentation and individual essay @ 1,200 words (hardcopy for review and web version posted on blog).

Part 1 – The theme for this semester is Throw Away People.  When you think of this theme what comes to mind.  The class has viewed several videos pertaining to the plight of the homeless, the underclass and the displaced.  How does space define the person?  (If you have problems with this task use yourself as an example, and then compare your environment with those that you have observed.)  

Part 2- The Observation – Call and make an appointment to volunteer at a local homeless shelter or a senior facility.  As you observe the environment how does this space define the Individual?   You need to analyze the social, psychological, and economic impact of the environment. 

Part 3- The oral discussion- this is a class discussion when you will look at your individual and group experiences.

Essay #2

Building Your Essay

Planning material:  Use of KWL

Prewriting Technique: Reporter formula

Planning and Pre writing

Use K.W.L. for your planning and prewriting strategies. Use the reporter’s formula to explore your  topic. Your prewriting should identify the purpose, audience and point of view on the subject.

 Peer critiques – you must have at least two critique, four blog responses, and one lab  or tutor review of your essay.     Voice/ tone, audience, meaning, evidence, structure, and organization are the areas peer readers must comment on. The response must be a page in length

Mode of Discourse: Process Analysis

Sources:  This essay must utilize four -five outside sources.  The MLA format must be utilized to document the supporting information.

To analyze a topic is to break it down into smaller parts so that you can get a better look at it and understand it. 

An exploratory essay might answer one or more of these questions:  What is the current condition, or state of affairs? What are the pros and cons?  What are the ways of considering this topic?  What are the possibilities?

Be sure you realize the difference between an exploratory essay and an evaluation essay.  An evaluation essay passes judgments; it says what’s good and what’s bad, what’s better or worse.  An exploratory essay describes a situation; this is how it is, advantages and disadvantages, pro’s and con’s

Introduction:   In the introduction make sure that you clearly give your reader an understanding of your purpose.  Make sure to give enough background information.  Take the time to give the reader a description of the space(s) as well as an understanding of how these spaces define the occupant.  Look at the social implication, and the psychological implication of the space. How does this space shape one’s worldview and is there a connection to the theme?    Make sure that you develop all supporting points. 

Draft posting:  Make sure that your essay is post along with a peer critique completed before 5p.m. March 22, 2012.   The papers will be turned  in by March 27^Th and 28^th

The Narrative essay

Project Web
Our Method: The Projects
The progressions brought us to the academic argumentative essay by way of an introduction to voice, genre, and scholarly research. The projects ask that we continue there yet with greater emphasis on collaboration and a more sophisticated theoretical scope.
The projects include Project Web, Project Space, and Project Text, and each entails critical reading, process work, and group work. The projects also require composing with new media, fieldwork, and class presentations.
Project Web: Project Web asks that you form groups of four and, in conversation with each group member, design individual blogs devoted to a theme suggested by our Stretch reading. Your blogs will be linked, so you will explore multi-media composition individually and as a group. Your group will read and write about technology and social change, immediacy, hyper mediacy and remediation, via the narrative.
Note that your blog can include images, video, and animation that illustrate the content and themes of your particular blog posts. Each blog post will be academic in content. The blog provides you with an alternative space in which to practice writing and revision.
Project Web Requirements: Blog with posts, blog links to group members, use of new visual rhetoric, and essay @1,200 words (hardcopy for review and web version posted on blog).









Narrative Essay
“Writing which tells a story ”
Chapter 11
Writing Assignment:
Select a topic area and write an essay using narration as the paper’s dominant method of development. The Narrative is an opportunity for you to tell a story. Although some writers use the narrative format to relate unusual experiences, most tend to tell tales of love, joy, loss and frustrations. As A storyteller the challenge lies in applying your vision to a common experience and making them unique (in order to capture the reader’s interest). This essay can combine another format to help create your point (i.e. Description). Determine your purpose before beginning to write. Make sure to tell the story from a consistent point of view. As you plan and pre-write think about the scope of the issue; try to identify causal chains. What is the point of view, tense and conflict (internal and external)? All final drafts must be posted on the blog by 5p.m. on the due date.

Planning and Pre writing
Use K.W.L., Mapping, brainstorming or any other prewriting technique to generate narrative details. After examining your raw material identify two or three narrative points (thesis statements) that might focus an essay. Your prewriting should identify the purpose, audience and point of view on the selected subject.
Character Development:
Use a “People Watching” session to start on your character creation. Your characters must be fully developed.
Peer critiques – you must have at least two critique, four blog reviews and one lab review of your essay. Voice/ tone, audience, meaning, evidence, structure, and organization are the areas readers must comment on.
Revisions: Revision is mandatory. Check for vivid details that evoke strong feeling, good sentence structure, paragraph development and overall meaning and structure.

Please post your URL along with the class, date and time that you have this class.  In addition   please list your readers.  I will go to your site.  Thank you Deborakh A. Broadous