Your final project for this course will consist of three parts:
- An 8-10 minute oral presentation on a topic of your choosing.
- A brief research summary describing your findings.
- An annotated bibliography of sources consulted about your topic.
Selecting a Topic and Creating a Research Question: Your first step is to select a topic you’d like to explore for your final project. Your topic must be connected to our course theme, displacement. You may choose a topic from the list provided, keeping in mind that all the topics on the list are broad and would need to be narrowed substantially, or you can feel free to come up with your own topic, provided you receive verbal approval from your professor. Choose a topic that genuinely interests you! Once you’ve chosen your topic, craft a research question about your topic that will guide your work.
Submit Topic Ideas: By 11 o’clock pm on Sunday, April 17th, post three ideas for topics to our course blog. Try to narrow your topic and express it in the form of a question.
Topic Approval: By Wednesday, April 20th (our last session before Spring Break), you should have come to an agreement with Professor Sylvor about your topic.
Researching Your Topic: You will consult a minimum of four (4) sources in researching your topic. At least one of your sources must be a scholarly source!
Planning Your Presentation: The format of your presentation should be fairly straightforward, comprised of three parts: What question was I hoping to answer about my topic? What did I discover through my research? What conclusions can I draw on the basis of this research? You are welcome to use visual aids and the technology available in the classroom during your presentation, but keep in mind that I am more interested in the quality of your ideas than in any fancy bells and whistles! You may use notes when delivering your presentation, but you may NOT read from a prepared text or script.
Presentation Schedule: Presentations will take place on May 11th, May 16th, and May 18th in class and should be around 8-10 minutes long. We will be pulling numbers from a hat to determine the order of our presentations. You are welcome to trade numbers with a classmate as long as you inform me of the change.
Research Summary: Your research summary should be 5-6 pages long and should follow the format of your presentation. Begin with a description of your research project. What question or questions were you hoping to answer? What did you learn through your research? What conclusions can you draw on the basis of your research? What surprises did your research yield? What questions are you left with?
Annotated Bibliography: You will be preparing and submitting an annotated bibliography of all the sources you used in preparing your presentation. See handout titled “What Is an Annotated Bibliography?” for guidance. Bibliographies and Research Summaries should be uploaded to turnitin.com as a single file by 11pm on Friday, May 20th. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Displacement Topic Ideas
Anything related to immigration:
Immigration from a particular place at a particular time
A particular aspect of the immigrant experience – immigration during childhood, for example.
Immigrant labor
Experience of being an illegal immigrant
Something historic
Immigrant neighborhoods in NYC
Immigration as issue in current presidential race
Anything related to topic of refugees:
Experience of Jewish refugees in WWII
Life in contemporary refugee camps
America’s role in current refugee crisis
Refugees adjusting to life in Europe
Moral/ethical dilemmas raised by issue
Social media and current refugee crisis
Adoption
Experiences of moving that aren’t related to immigration – what does it mean to start somewhere new?
Migrant workers
Gender and Displacement – Is being transgender a form of displacement?
Language and Displacement – bilingualism, language and education
Nursing Homes (the elderly and displacement)
Amish practice of Rumschpringen
Space exploration
Experience of field anthropologists
School integration
Eviction
Convents, Monasteries, and other forms of escaping the secular world
Siblings and psychological displacement
Adjustment to the armed forces
Homelessness
What Is An Annotated Bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is a list of all of the sources consulted in your research, but unlike regular bibliographies, an annotated bibliography includes a brief description of each work consulted (approx.150 words.)
When writing your annotation, the complete citation should always come first and the annotation follows. The citation format will follow the MLA 2009 guidelines. You can find detailed instructions about the MLA citation guidelines in your Little, Brown handbook, if you have one. They are also available online.
Your description of the work cited should include the following:
- The purpose of the work
- A summary of its content
- For what type of audience the work is written
- Its relevance to your topic
- Any special or unique features about the material
Sample Entries:
Greene, Stuart. “Mining Texts in Reading to Write.” Journal of Advanced Composition 12.1 (1992): 151-67. Print.
This article works from the assumption that reading and writing inform each other, particularly in the matter of rhetorical constructs. Greene introduces the concept of “mining texts” for rhetorical situations when reading with a sense of authorship. Considerations for what can be mined include language, structure, and context, all of which can be useful depending upon the writer’s goals. The article provides some practical methods that complement Doug Brent’s ideas about reading as invention.
Murray, Donald M. Read to Write: A Writing Process Reader. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1987. Print.
Murray’s book deals more specifically with the ways writers read other writers, particularly the ways in which writers read themselves. Read to Write provides a view of drafting and revising, focusing on the way a piece of writing evolves as an author takes the time to read and criticize his or her own work. Moreover, the book spotlights some excellent examples of professional writing and displays each writer’s own comments on his/her own creations, in effect allowing the student reader to learn (by reading) the art of rereading and rewriting as exemplified by famous authors.
Newell, George E. “The Effects of Between-Draft Responses on Students’ Writing and Reasoning About Literature.” Written Communication 11.3 (1994): 311-47. Print.
This study reflects the advantage of teacher responses on student papers. When reflected upon as “dialogue” questions to the student, these comments can lead to further interpretation and deeper understanding of a text. Newell found that responses which prompted students to work from their initial drafts brought about more final papers than teacher responses that led them away from their initial drafts with “directive” remarks.