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Teaching Research in English 101In one or more formal assignments, instructors guide students through the process of writing essays that grow out of careful and sustained research. While this is most often accomplished by assigning one long research paper, some instructors structure their section of English 101 so that students research a topic throughout the semester and use that research in several different papers. Instructors should endeavor to teach students the relationship between careful learning and effective writing. Students should learn that research is not a matter of snatching a quotation or two from a source or of pasting together parts of various sources, but of incorporating ideas and information from sources in a way that supports and clarifies their own ideas. Through their involvement in this process, students should receive an introduction to methods of research, strategies of organization, and the crafting of academic prose. Since many of the goals are methodological, instructors should stress process as well as product, walking students through the steps in the process, from invention to revision, and from bibliographic search to methods of documentation. Because some research topics lead to more profitable work than others, instructors should give students extra help at the early stages of their research. Regardless of research topic, instructors usually devise assignments that will accomplish the following:
So that students can concentrate on developing these skills, instructors should not require a paper that is excessively long. The researched writing assignment will introduce students to the issues involved in the writing of a longer essay while allowing them to pay attention to stylistic and methodological details. Many instructors of English 101 find it helpful to have a librarian address their class about research resources in the library. One of the reference librarians will arrange for the English 101 class to meet in one of the computer classrooms. The librarian will guide students through the steps of a research project¾from finding the best search terms for a topic to printing out full texts of online resources. With advance notice, the librarian may be able to gear his or her talk to research issues of particular interest to a class such as an instructor-assigned research topic or a specific type of data. To arrange for such a presentation, an instructor should contact Kathy DeMay (x6310) several weeks in advance. All English 101 students will have completed the RIT course or will take it concurrently with English 101. Students will learn about academic research strategies and processes, research databases, and the evaluation of sources during the sixth, seventh, and eighth weeks of the semester. English 101 instructors can help their students prepare for these weeks by assigning a research assignment early in the semester (before the fifth week) that will help students realize their need for this information. If English 101 instructors help students select their research topics before the fifth week, students will be able to apply the RIT instruction immediately to their research needs for English 101. |
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