Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Alternative to the Research Paper

The purpose of this blog is to share interesting ideas I have found in American professional publications dealing with the teaching of English at all levels, elementary, secondary and college.

Topic: An Alternative approach to the research paper and a method of avoiding plagiarism.

Title: Response to “Connecting the Dots: Timed Writing Tests and Prewriting Activities.” Nancy Lawson Remler. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (March 2008), 312.

Summary: The author suggests that students write an initial timed essay based on a prompt like that of the SAT, a prompt that relates to the topics of their reading assignments. After every three weeks, they revise the essay, which is read by the teacher, but without its being graded. Near the end of the semester, they expand their essay into a full-fledged research paper, which is evaluated. Should result in students’ finding their own idea to expand into a research paper without having to resort to canned research papers on the Internet. Suggests that the technique is also practice for the SAT 25-minute timed essay.

[As an alternative to the standard research paper, I think I would try this idea. As practice for the SAT 25-minute essay, I think frequent practice will lead to better success.. RayS.]

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