English 102

Spring 2007

Unit One: The Inquiring Researcher: A Research Proposal

Overview:

This semester, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in extensive research about, among, and with a particular community, and about issues related to it. What community, you ask? As we’ll discuss in class, it’s up to you (for the most part!) We’ll use the first few weeks of class (unit one) to explore what written research products might look like; to consider what passions, interests, and questions you have and what research you might do to learn more about those; to establish what community you’ll research and why.

We’ll be doing several in-class and out-of-class reading responses, reflective writings, and two longer “Explorations” that will help you think towards your longer unit Writing Project. Your Explorations are the equivalent of two typed pages in Word, and they’re due to your WikiWorkshop before class begins (in other words, please have them posted before you come to class.) Posting them in a smaller group gives you the opportunity to give each other more specific kinds of feedback as your ideas evolve.

Okay, but Why?

In some ways, this is the most crucial unit of the semester; you’ll want to immediately jump in to thinking closely and carefully about what matters to you, what you want to know more about, what interests you. All semester long, I’ll be asking you to try on various writerly “identities”—the main identities we’re working from, though, are that of writer and researcher. As an active researcher, you’ll be using these first few short weeks to get curious—to care, to see what’s of interest, to look at your immediate space and context with new eyes. Ready? Here we go.

Readings:

Mike Rose, “Introduction,” “The Working Life of a Waitress”

Example research chapter/article of your choice

Exploration One: What are Mike Rose’s passions and interests? List as many as you can find. For each interest/passion you find, consider: what did he do to learn more about these? How do you know?

Exploration Two: What are your research interests? What questions and/or topics are you interested in right now, and why? In the reading you’ve selected, how did the writer conduct research and how do you know? What methods for research intrigue you—either in what you’ve read or in what we’ve talked about in class?

Unit One Writing Project: Use the longer Writing Project to simply lay out for yourself what you’re going to research this semester in English 102 and why. Use writing to think through various issues related to this. You will likely pull from writing we’ve done in class and your two Explorations; you’ll want to consider the following questions for your longer piece:

What topic/area do you think you’ll focus on for your work this semester? Why? What fascinates you? Intrigues you?

What do you imagine might be some of the challenges you’ll face as you engage in this long-term research project? How might you address these challenges?

What community, ideally related to your topic/area of interest, are you going to investigate, and why?

What are some preliminary questions you have about this community?

What do you hope to learn?

Of course, throughout the semester, your ideas about this topic/area and community may change (in fact, they should—that shows you’ve learned something!!)

Technical Requirements for your Writing Project:

4 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1” margins.

What’s due when your Unit One work is due:

  • All notes, reading responses, freewrites, and reflective writings (labeled and dated, please!)
  • Explorations 1 and 2
  • Responses/letters/feedback from the WikiWorkshop
  • Your Writing Project
  • Cover letter

Strategies we’ll be working on in this unit:

  • Using writing to explore, discover, and process material;
  • Choosing meaningful research projects;
  • Envisioning long-term research;
  • Reading for a variety of purposes.