2. ANOUNCEMENTS/reminders ENGLISH UNDERGRADUATE CONFERENCE PROPOSAL FORM: Reading and Writing Identity. See the Proposal form. Please submit Conference Proposal forms to Dr. Heather Powers (Heather.Powers@iup.edu) or in her mailbox in Leonard 110. Conference: Feb. 15 2010. Class attendance. Take vouchers! Blog Assignments: DUE @ 2:00 pm M and W
3. AGENDA From brainstorming to research questions. Exercise: “Family in the USA” Class Discussion on Diversity: Diversity Research Projects. What is diversity, what is social change? Color Line Experiment Discovering your Finding a researchable topic Presentations/Discussion Facilitation Sing-Up sheet
4. Deciding your research inquiry, Creating Research Questions Choose an area of interest (go from general to specific) Clarify, systematize and change your thinking. Once you have done brainstorming and some practice writing, you need to focus on a particular aspect of your topic. Ask preliminary questions about your topic and write them down. You need to THINK and ACT as a sociologist, educator, economist, political scientist, philosopher etc. Create two RESEARCH QUESTIONS about “The Family in the U.S.” topic
5. What makes a question researchable? It should be clear and narrow (not too big, not too small) It interests the researcher! It raises questions, and the answer might not be simple. It focuses on a topic about which something has been said before. It should be intellectually challenging It should have some social contribution. You should be able to find resources for your topic easily.
6. Narrowing your research question Time: Limit the time frame of your project (e.g. advertising and anorexia in 80s vs today) Place: Anchor a larger subject to a particular location (e.g. IUP students’ experiences with diversity, health care issues in Western Pennsylvania) Person: Use a specific case to reveal generalities about the group (e.g. instead of writing about the homeless problem in general, write about a homeless man. Instead of writing about all teachers’ experiences with racism in schools, focus on two or three teachers)
7. What is social action? What does it mean to act as a researcher? Social Action Research: social “change-oriented” social action research projects that explore a puzzle related to education, society, culture, politics etc. It’s “the study of a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within” (Elliot &Keynes, p.69) It’s a project that you pursue that will help further our understanding on a social topic. The purpose is to promote social change and social diversity by transforming structures. This type of research sees knowledge as applied. Becoming an action researcher means to become actively involved in various communities.
8. Eng 202 Social action Project ideas Jackie: Why has teen pregnancy rate increased over the years? Kate: Gender differences in workplace Karissa: Why are more and more youth overweight? Anorexia and bulimia seem to be a common trend in teenage girls. Nicole: how race, gender, social class, and language affect children and teens’ overall health and well-being. Narong: Intercultural communication: the issue of how people of different culture can co-exist and how they can understand one another better in a way that will make them more tolerant.
9. In-class blogging: brainstorming about your social action research projects What do you want to “research” about in this course? Think about what motivates you, what you are passionate about, and how this “burning topic” is related to your areas of major/interest/professional goals? Briefly describe the importance of this social action research to you. What contribution do you think it can make? What is the importance of this topic? (e.g. to you, to your community etc.) How might you go about conducting this research? (e.g. interviewing, taking photographs, observations, video recording, doing a library research etc.)
10. After free writing: the importance of “process writing” Academic Writing is never a finished product. To be a perfect football player or a dancer, you need to practice. Learning the rules doesn’t mean that you will learn how to play well. It’s the same in academic writing. In the coming days we will work on your individual topics, so begin to shop around important topics that will make an impact on your communities. THE PROCESS: Deciding a topic that is close to your heart(and that overlaps with the course theme), Searching for sources, reading different articles/books about your topic, narrowing down your topic and formulating a Research Question, learning how to summarize and synthesize your sources, learning how to put “your” voice in your writing, learning how to go about exploring your topic, learning how to write up your findings.
12. Assignments Read Tipping Point: Intro and Ch # 1 Blog Assignment: Catch up with your blog entries. Respond to one of your classmate’s blog entry. Your response can include comments related to the content, mechanics or organization of the writing. Happy Reading and Writing!
