Laura Braunstein (Library), and Karen Gocsik (Institute for Writing and Rhetoric) facilitated this session on focusing our students’ research processes. At the start, everyone present introduced themselves and shared a question about or challenge they’ve encountered in teaching students research. Those topics/challenges included helping students develop questions of an appropriate scope, finding a balance between instructing students on the writing process and giving them time to practice their writing, and guiding our students in identifying topics that are of interest to readers (not just of personal interest to the writer).
We then divided into pairs and, with Laura Braunstein’s guidance, worked through a very effective activity based on one developed by Aimee Bahng, Assistant Professor of English. This activity, “Levels of Questions,” provides a scale by which to rate “levels of arguability” of research questions.
- Level 1: Questions that can be answered with knowledge you have right now.
- Level 2: Questions that can be definitively answered with scholarly research.
- Level 3: Open-ended quesions to which an answer can be proposed based on scholarly research but that cannot be answered definitively.
- Level 4: Questions that cannot be addressed with scholarly research, either because of lack of evidence or because they ask something that cannot be answered by citing evidence.
In our pairs, we used the scale to rate a list of sample questions we had been given. As level 3 questions are the ideal level for student papers, being that they are debatable, we rewrote all the level 1, 2, and 4 questions to meet level 3 criteria.
When we reported out, we found that many of us had rated our questions differently. Some of these discrepancies were due to disciplinary differences. “How did language evolve?” is a level 2 question in some disciplines, while in others it may be a level 3 question (and perhaps even a level 3 question that needs to be narrower in scope, depending on the course.) We noticed that sometimes subtle changes in vocabulary moved a question from one level to the next. Some rated the question “Should parents be worried about giving their children too many vaccines?” as a level 2, while some rated it a level 4 due to the use of the word “worried”.
The discussion was lively and interesting. All present seemed to be in agreement that the activity is a valuable tool to use in classroom instruction.
After completing this activity, we looked at a student paper on “The Great Gatsby” from a past WRI2-3 class. Karen Gocsik introduced us to a strategy for helping students hone their research questions in their writing. Referencing Aristotle’s topoi, she explained to us how she aided a student by asking her “What question is each of your paragraph’s answering?” By doing this, we (as had her student) saw that some whole paragraphs answered level 1 questions such as “What are the personal attributes of the female characters in the Great Gatsby?” By reading the paper in this way, we saw that each paragraph of the student’s paper addressed a level 1 question….until the very end. The student’s closing sentence was, in fact, a level 3 question. Her conclusion was actually the ideal starting point for her paper.
In summary, this was an engaging, thought-provoking, hands-on session–the kind I like best. I encourage you to look at the adaptation of Aimee Bahng’s assignment, and considering using it, or modifying it, in your classes.
