Assignment Sequence
My assignment sequence is structurally organized hierarchically to walk students through the steps of academic research writing throughout the semester and will accumulate into a well-realized research project. The cumulative nature of the sequence will scaffold the way scholarly research is conducted as well as how one should write in the scholarly research genre.
The sequence will be framed by genre and activity theory. To achieve this, the course will begin with a unit introducing genre theory and activity theory through readings, then require the students to conduct a genre analysis, which will be the first major assignment. The analysis will function to help students see the way writing works in a real way, which supports the content of the class, and also function as an inventional exercise for the upcoming research that grounds the students in the field of rhetoric, which is a new discipline for most freshmen. By introducing all of these elements together in one unit, I hope to increase the likelihood of transfer by teaching writing as it works in the real world, grounded in lived experience.
From there, the course will introduce scholarly research, both in theory and in practice. In terms of theory, the students will learn about research as a conversation and as the product of genuine inquiry. In terms of practice, they will learn how to perform research in the school’s database, how to identify who is conversing with whom, and how to identify “gaps” in literature, or “niches.” A primary goal of the course is to teach students how scholarly research works, including the conversational nature of disciplinary research. This goal will be achieved through two major assignments: the annotated bibliography and the literature review. The reason I plan to require both as major assignments is because I believe literature reviews are best scaffolded with annotated bibliographies. The students must first understand why they have the research that they do before they will be able to synthesize it in any meaningful way. It is also important to give the students an opportunity to receive feedback and correct their path of secondary research before they attempt to synthesize. Dedicating time to an annotated bibliography will ensure that students will be well prepared to write a literature review.
From there, students will begin to learn how to introduce their own voice into their chosen conversation by learning both how and why to conduct primary research. Students will conduct primary research because it is import for them to shift their understand from using support to undergird opinions to using data to create knowledge about the world. To achieve this shift, students will fulfill two more major assignments: the methods essay and the results essay. These two assignments will be explained to students to potentially be two sections of their final paper if they choose to use the IMRaD format. The reason I will encourage the IMRaD format is because in my limited experience, the format itself appears to scaffold the way research works. The first assignment in this unit, the methods essay, will require students to explain the methods they used in their primary research. After this assignment is graded with feedback, I will assign the results section. Breaking down both of these smaller sections of the IMRaD individually is, I believe, necessary for helping students to achieve a successful final research project because failing to properly identify the significant details of their methods or salient data in their results could upset the cumulative function of the course by derailing the hierarchical process.
Finally, the students will do major assignment six, which will be the final research project. Hopefully, if the students were able to use feedback and conferences to course-correct through each section in the previous assignments, their final paper should only require them to focus on their analyses, interpretations, and conclusions in their discussion section as well as some overall focus on revision for the purpose of refinement and cohesion.
The sequence will be framed by genre and activity theory. To achieve this, the course will begin with a unit introducing genre theory and activity theory through readings, then require the students to conduct a genre analysis, which will be the first major assignment. The analysis will function to help students see the way writing works in a real way, which supports the content of the class, and also function as an inventional exercise for the upcoming research that grounds the students in the field of rhetoric, which is a new discipline for most freshmen. By introducing all of these elements together in one unit, I hope to increase the likelihood of transfer by teaching writing as it works in the real world, grounded in lived experience.
From there, the course will introduce scholarly research, both in theory and in practice. In terms of theory, the students will learn about research as a conversation and as the product of genuine inquiry. In terms of practice, they will learn how to perform research in the school’s database, how to identify who is conversing with whom, and how to identify “gaps” in literature, or “niches.” A primary goal of the course is to teach students how scholarly research works, including the conversational nature of disciplinary research. This goal will be achieved through two major assignments: the annotated bibliography and the literature review. The reason I plan to require both as major assignments is because I believe literature reviews are best scaffolded with annotated bibliographies. The students must first understand why they have the research that they do before they will be able to synthesize it in any meaningful way. It is also important to give the students an opportunity to receive feedback and correct their path of secondary research before they attempt to synthesize. Dedicating time to an annotated bibliography will ensure that students will be well prepared to write a literature review.
From there, students will begin to learn how to introduce their own voice into their chosen conversation by learning both how and why to conduct primary research. Students will conduct primary research because it is import for them to shift their understand from using support to undergird opinions to using data to create knowledge about the world. To achieve this shift, students will fulfill two more major assignments: the methods essay and the results essay. These two assignments will be explained to students to potentially be two sections of their final paper if they choose to use the IMRaD format. The reason I will encourage the IMRaD format is because in my limited experience, the format itself appears to scaffold the way research works. The first assignment in this unit, the methods essay, will require students to explain the methods they used in their primary research. After this assignment is graded with feedback, I will assign the results section. Breaking down both of these smaller sections of the IMRaD individually is, I believe, necessary for helping students to achieve a successful final research project because failing to properly identify the significant details of their methods or salient data in their results could upset the cumulative function of the course by derailing the hierarchical process.
Finally, the students will do major assignment six, which will be the final research project. Hopefully, if the students were able to use feedback and conferences to course-correct through each section in the previous assignments, their final paper should only require them to focus on their analyses, interpretations, and conclusions in their discussion section as well as some overall focus on revision for the purpose of refinement and cohesion.
