Designing the PACS 2 RESEARCH PAPER Assignment Mike Peterson, PhD Director of University Writing Programs

What is the point of assigning a Research Paper?

Before Creating Your Prompt Consider what you want the assignment to require the students to do, in relation to the PACS 2 objectives Before Creating Your Prompt

The primary objectives of PACS 2 are to help students: Continue working to answer the question, “What is a good society?”—this time through a topically focused exploration of some particular aspect or facet of society. Become better: writers—able to put down one’s thoughts in a concise, cogent, audience- appropriate manner. critical thinkers—sharp, nimble, inclined to search for evidence and skilled at appraising it. readers—able to understand an author’s main and supporting points, and how a reading is organized. speakers—comfortable, clear, and compelling in formal and informal contexts. Develop academic research skills – retrieval, evaluation, synthesis, and documentation of information, all of which jointly can be referred to as information competency – appropriate to college students. Become more socially aware and better equipped to be responsible, engaged citizens. PACS 2 Objectives

Before Creating Your Prompt Consider what you want the assignment to do, in terms of the larger questions of your course Before Creating Your Prompt

Before Creating Your Prompt Consider What kinds of thinking you want students to do (define, illustrate, create, compare, analyze, critical/creative thinking, etc.) Before Creating Your Prompt

Before Creating Your Prompt Consider Your students’ writing process (remember, they’re still freshmen) Before Creating Your Prompt

Before Creating Your Prompt Consider outlining your research requirements in a way that educates students about the research process Before Creating Your Prompt

What makes a good prompt good and a bad prompt bad? Discussion

What to Include in a Prompt Context, Audience, Purpose Business Details: length, due dates, formatting Be clear about what you want and what you don’t want Component Instructions (specific tasks): proposal, drafts, annotated bibliography, etc. Available Resources: library course, writing center, sample papers, preferred books or journals, etc. Rubric or Grading Criteria What to Include in a Prompt

A Word or Two about Components Map These Out: give yourself time to read & respond to the draft and other components as necessary Remember, PACS 2 requires at least one draft that you’ll respond to A Word or Two about Components

A Word or Two about Components Substantially revised work can count double (e.g. 5 draft pages plus 5 final pages can equal 10 total pages of formal writing) (But how do we get students to substantially revise their drafts?) A Word or Two about Components

Some Ideas for Revision Reduce the Page Count for the Final Draft For example, rough draft = 9 page minimum final draft = 7 page maximum Change Mode Between Drafts For example, draft 1 = inquiry driven (with a driving question) draft 2 = thesis driven (with a thesis statement) Other Ideas? Some Ideas for Revision

A Word or Two about Components Some Common Components: Proposal Annotated Bibliography Informal Exploratory Writing Prompts Draft (on which you’ll comment) Peer Response “The Research Story” Final Draft Presentation A Word or Two about Components

A Final Note about Prompts A good prompt helps the Student Writing Center mentors when students bring them in A Final Note about Prompts