Hannah T. Davis
Assignments & Activities Archive
Activity Description
The beginning of a research paper assignment might involve a discussion of the goals of the assignment and a short brainstorming activity to help students think about possible topics. When students are asked to quickly choose a topic in this manner, without first conducting preliminary research, they are led to believe that research topics come from prior knowledge and isolated interests rather than from context-specific questions. Positioning research in this way can inadvertently overlook or misconstrue the ways in which reading and questioning serve as the basis of academic inquiries. As Patrick Sullivan explains, “In many cases, there is no process of inquiry required or modeled for students at all. Students are simply asked to state and support a position” (60). Without first exploring potential conversations, or “listen[ing] for a while” as Kenneth Burke describes in his parlor metaphor (110), students are unaware of the types of questions scholars are asking or how those questions are being explored and discussed. As a result, students often pursue the first idea that comes to mind, yielding topics that are trite, unfocused, or uninteresting. Thus, the goal of this activity is to move students away from the notion that research is used to confirm prior beliefs toward a view of research as an inquiry process. Because of course-related time constraints, students usually do not have the luxury of authentic inquiry as it occurs for us as scholars— through reading and engaging with academic conversations. However, by exposing students to potential conversations prior to asking them to select a topic, we can help them use reading and research to develop curiosities and questions. This activity introduces students to a variety of conversations that can occur within an overarching research topic, which reveals to students that scholars are studying the topic from a range of fields and perspectives, asking different types of questions, and using various methods to investigate those questions. While this activity was designed for an assignment that has an umbrella topic, it can also be used for open-ended research projects by selecting an even wider range of sources. This activity begins with a discussion about the process of inquiry-based research before engaging students in a round of source “speed dating” with the purpose of revealing new ideas, prompting questions, and demonstrating that “writing and questioning are inseparable” (Miller and Jurecic vi).