The Pissed Off Professor

Some of the things I have to include in my courses are not particularly enjoyable for me. (Imagine that, a job in which everything one is required to do is not utterly appealing.) English Writing 300 (1A, Freshman Composition) requires a research paper be included in the semester’s curriculum.

I loathe this. It is difficult enough to encourage students to produce 4-page papers which focus on something narrow, but trying to convince a beginning writing student (who generally isn’t interested in being a writing student of any level) to embark on a semester’s long research project that culminates in 7-10 pages of in-depth writing about a more complex subject is nearly impossible. (It is made possible by setting up one’s syllabus so said assignment is worth about 20% of the student’s overall grade.)

I have struggled with working around the research paper by integrating research elements into each formal writing assignment. The results of this have been abysmal: students ignore the parameters set for acceptable sources and settle (at the last minute, I presume) for an online dictionary which provides a definition that gets plugged awkwardly (and uselessly) into the paper’s introduction. The other common result was a good source which would have provided a great addition to a paper that is instead relegated to a single (awkwardly) integrated quotation of questionable value.

Much of this failure might be the fault of the instructor: if students don’t know what types of sources are acceptable and are not clear regarding how best to integrate quotations, mistakes will happen. I can assure you, this is not the case with my students. They are thoroughly versed in what makes a reliable, usable outside source, and they are shown numerous examples regarding how to integrate said sources appropriately.

Several years ago, I gave up integrating research and reverted to assigning research papers. The results of this were also horrible. I ended my semester with a pile of papers that (for the most part) showed clear indications of last minute work: poor research, poor writing, poor me.

The overriding impression I got was a complete lack of interest on the part of (most) students regarding their topics. So I tweaked things again: I began using Jonathon Swift’s A Modest Proposal as the starting point for students’ research.

The assignment calls for students to read the piece, think about something that bothers them, then write a paper that is part research and part proposed solution. The research element of the paper is to convince the reader that the problem in question is relevant; the proposal portion of the paper allows students to get creative. The problem and its presentation are at the students’ discretion: it can be something serious or something frivolous, and the proposed solution can be satirical, serious, or anyplace in between.

If only the research papers I’d been assigned as an undergraduate were this cool!

Overall, this has been a relatively effective solution to the Research Paper Problem. In addition to improving the topic parameters, I’ve integrated mini-due dates for the project into the semester, and this has helped keep students working toward the goal. (As a bonus, I have more grading to do.)

Of course, a handful of my students have missed the due date to submit a formal topic proposal to me. The reason: they don’t know what to write about.

Next semester, I guess I’ll have to think of a few topics to assign to those students who can’t think of a single thing that’s wrong with the world or how to solve it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 10th, 2007 at 10:24 am and is filed under College, Education, English, Illustration, Research, Students, Teaching, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.