Research Paper Coming Up

This month, students will be working with their base groups on a research paper about persecution or colonialism. Groups worked well for our debates last semester, so we will do the same type of procedure this quarter.

Start thinking about possible topics and read the following basic assignment plans.

Prewriting

Groups will select one specific historical or present-day example of a country or group of people that have faced or are currently facing the effects of persecution, colonization or imperialism.
For the paper’s prewriting, groups will use the Thinking Maps software to track ideas for their paper. Groups will analyze the causes and effects of the event in a multi-flow map with the frame listing the research and specific ideas. The multi-flow boxes will contain the big ideas that would appear in a thesis, paragraph topic sentences or as the points of the paper's PIEs. One student will post the group's Multi-Flow Map on his or her blog so that all group members can access the group's ideas through the Internet.

Blogs for Notetaking

Students will use their English 10 blogs to take notes on their research so that we can achieve the following two goals: 1) to reduce the use of paper to print Internet sources, and 2) to allow group members to review each other's research from the luxury of their own homes instead of getting together outside of class to work on the project.

Writing a group paper with the help of computer networking is not only 21st Century, but also will give you experience with how groups function in real-world work situations.

To take notes on a topic on your blog, you should make a new blog post for each Internet source that you use. Your blog posts should mainly be summaries and paraphrases of the information found on the web site that you're citing. Occasionally, you may wish to use a sentence or two exactly as it was written on the Internet, so you should copy and paste that sentence to your blog post. Immediately after pasting the quotation, be sure to enclose it in quotation marks and add a parenthetical citation after the quotation so that you protect yourself from plagiarism.

The blog post should include a hyperlink that takes you, your group members and your teacher directly to the website that is being summarized and paraphrased.

Basic Paper Outline

1. Introduction with an attention-getter that connects to Nectar in a Sieve, Things Fall Apart, or Night (the book we will read the week before spring break).
   
2. Body paragraph(s) on the causes of the persecution/colonization. For example, why did the British colonize India?
   
3. Body paragraph(s) on the effects of the persecution/colonization on the people being persecuted/taken over. For example, what were the effects of British colonization on the culture of India?
   
4. Conclusion that addresses what people can do about the situation (if it's a current world event) or what people can do to prevent a similar situation (if writing about a past historical event) from happening in the future.

The number of paragraphs devoted to causes compared to paragraphs devoted to effects will vary by the topic and the number of people in each group.

Individual Accountability

Each member of the group will write a separate portion of the paper; however, group members will discuss the paper's ideas as a whole and help each other with peer editing. The multi-flow map will help keep your group organized to achieve a cohesive paper.

Groups should split the actual writing of the paper as follows:

Author #1 writes the introduction and conclusion
Author #2, #3, #4 (and author #5 in one group) each write one body paragraph

Other tasks to split up:

1. Leader and motivator
2. Thinking Map Maker (must have functioning TM software at home)
3. Works Cited Creator and MLA expert
4. Paraphrase and fact checker who guards against plagiarism

If someone doesn't write his or her portion of the paper, groups will simply be able to jot down what portion of the paper that person would have written for the paper, and the missing section will only affect the grade of the student who did not live up to his or her responsibilities.

MLA Format

The research paper will be written in MLA format, complete with in-text citations and a works cited page.

Due Date

The final paper will be due on Friday, March 27. That's the day before spring break, so even if one or more students in the group will not be here that day, the paper is still due. In fact, the entire group may wish to finish the paper early because your group will need to present the paper on the last day of that week that all members are in attendance.

Paper Presentation

On Friday, March 27 groups will present their papers before turning them in. The presentation will involve showing your member's blogs so that you can discuss your multi-flow map and some of your key research cites. Your presentation will also involve reading the introduction with the connection to one of the books read by all English 10 students, one body paragraph, and the conclusion with the call to action on what people can do about the issue discussed in your paper.