Inquiry Research Project (under which there are several assignments, of course)

Teaching 101 has made me very interested in the bridge between personal narrative and academic research. We start the semester reading and writing personal narratives and listing/discussing hypothetical “How/Why Research Questions” that are inspired by the real-life stories we’re reading and the themes they reflect. As we move into reading argument pieces, students continue creating how/why questions, with no pressure to write on them or research them. The more complicated the questions, the more they’re celebrated and discussed in class. We simply keep a running list of these under a tab in our e-portfolios (or in our notebooks) called “Inquiry Log.” By taking time to explore research questions (in and of themselves) for fun, those that emerge from real stories (their own, other students’, and published authors’), visuals, argument pieces, events etc instead of rushing right to “pick a topic,” I find that my students’ level of inquiry has drastically improved.  (In fact, I’ve banned the word “topic” in class.) Most importantly, because we create and go through so many hypothetical research questions way before anyone ever commits to one of their own, I find that (when the time finally comes) students are very comfortable picking a complicated question; they’re less afraid of a question that doesn’t have an easy answer and are excited about the chance to wrestle with something complicated–something they care about. Granted, by doing this, I’m often rushed at the end of the semester, but I’m working on that!

ISP Research Paper