It’s the dreaded moment. The moment my students know is coming but want to avoid at all costs. It’s the moment I am dreading because I know it will involve a lot of grading. It’s the moment I assign the research paper. (Sound effect here.)
Not all of my classes write a research paper, but most of my classes do some type of research-based paper that involves me covering MLA citations thoroughly. While there is nothing wrong with this paper, and I do believe it is effective in its goals, I believe it can be better. I believe this paper can make students feel more accountable for their research and can make them realize how powerful their writing can be.
My new inspiration for this classic paper comes from Dr. Kilborn’s post in Yoda Corner this past Wednesday. Dr. Kilborn’s post revolved around the idea of her students blogging about their research articles. It is an online form of an annotated bibliography. I enjoyed how it kept students on track with a timeline but also get them to analyze their articles in a smaller format than a lengthy annotated bibliography.
The next step for me is to incorporate this into my classroom. I want to incorporate blogs into with my at-risk juniors and seniors. These students, as I have mentioned before, need to see an outcome of their writing; they need to see it can reach more people than their teacher in order for it to be the most effective. This would be the best platform to test out the blog, in my opinion. These students may be reluctant and hard to motivate, but they are a small class, they are a year-long class, and they are not as afraid of being vulnerable as other students of mine.
I am hoping to follow a very similar to process to what I normally do with the research paper but changing the format of the article analysis and the final format of the paper. A few things I still need to think through would be citations. Would students still cite the same way? Can I modify the citations because they are citing on a blog? Another question I need to consider is media. Should I allow students to incorporate media into their blog, since that is part of its appeal? How much media should I allow? Do I put limits on the format of the media?
By adding the blog aspect to the research paper, I am hoping I can achieve less eye rolls with the assignment and more excitement. My goal would be to go from the picture on the left to the picture on the right. I think it’s plausible, right?
