ENGLISH The Analytical Research Project

What is the Analytical Research Project? The goal of The Analytical Research Project is to give you the opportunity to produce a piece of academic writing on a topic of your choice that fits within the scope of our course theme. Furthermore, the process of planning and writing this researched, academic argument will enable you to further develop interests that will guide you through the assignments during the rest of the quarter. The authors of Writing Analytically suggest that researched writing is a process that requires time, energy, and patience. Accordingly, The Analytical Research Project contains five steps, each building on the previous step. Collectively, the steps of this project constitute 50% of your final course grade and will take place over eight weeks of the quarter.

Five Steps 1. Students choose a primary source related to the course theme and write a Primary Source Analysis. 2. Students use library resources to find secondary sources related to their topic and create an Annotated Bibliography using MLA format. 3. Students integrate the sources they’ve found into the writing they’ve already done for the PSA in the Secondary Source Integration. 4. Students meet with the teacher one-on-one for a Research Conference to discuss the project and their progress toward the final paper. 5. Students continue to add to and revise the writing they’ve done for the SSI to craft the final Analytical Research Paper.

Goals of the ARP Sustained focus on one primary source  Rhetorical analysis: examining how and why a source works, not just what it says  In-depth analysis of specific detail rather than overgeneralization  Making interpretive claims based on evidence from the source itself rather than on personal opinion  Sustained attention to one topic, which requires continual rethinking rather than reliance on first impressions

Goals of the ARP Recursive writing process  Continually returning to the previous step and rethinking previous ideas  Each step moves the project forward by requiring major changes to the argument while maintaining focus on the original primary source  Requires metacognition and critical thinking to analyze/rethink one’s own thought process  Time to focus on ideas/content before thinking about grammar and sentence-level concerns

Goals of the ARP Research  Learning to use library resources effectively  Introduction to scholarly/academic sources and how they can be used  Evaluating sources for credibility, relevance, etc.  Engaging in conversation with primary and secondary sources  Putting sources in conversation with each other  Using MLA citations to refer to sources

Goals of the ARP Academic writing  Learning what it means to join a scholarly conversation  Being aware of expectations of academic audiences  Following conventions appropriately, including style, tone, grammar, format, citations, etc.