Rieman, spring 2011 (MW)

The Inquiry Sequence: A Brief Overview

Due Dates:

February 16: Preliminary Inquiry Question

March 2: Revised/New Inquiry Question

March 16: Research Proposal

March 28: Annotated Bibliography

April 4: Inquiry Project Completed draft for peer workshop

April 15 (Friday): Revised Inquiry Product due

You will spend a good bit of the semester working what’s called an “Inquiry Sequence.” It begins with a
question—a desire to find out more about something with regard to writing (and reading). The inquiry
sequence draws on three ways of thinking about your question: what do you wonder about; what do you
already know; and what do you hope to learn?
 
The Inquiry Question is important because you’re going to spend a lot of time this term wrestling with it
in various ways, in different assignments. So it should be a question that sustains your interest; a question
that you won’t tire of—and a question that can’t easily be “answered.”
 
What comprises the Inquiry Sequence?
 The Preliminary Inquiry Question is the first step. Ask yourself what you know about reading
and writing, then ask yourself what you wonder about and then figure out what you’d like to
learn.
 The next step is to collect and respond to some preliminary research, both primary and
secondary. We’ll spend some time in the library learning how to use the library databases to
conduct your secondary research. For your primary research, start asking your friends and family
questions about your topic. See what you can figure out on your own.
 Once you have some initial research and have a better grasp of your topic and of the
conversations going on around it, you will revise or invent a new inquiry question. Perhaps
your question becomes more focused, or perhaps after your preliminary research and more
reading and thinking, you want to explore another topic entirely.
 Once you’ve revised your inquiry question, you’ll write a research proposal. We will have
writing group conferences to go over your proposals and talk about your next steps.
 Once you are clear with your research, you will conduct more research and continue conducting
research while you begin selecting sources you find useful, identifying the main ideas
surrounding your topic and summarizing what you find.
 Once you have a collection of reliable sources, you’ll evaluate and analyze them and explore the
connections among them. The result of this work will be your annotated bibliography.
 Your Inquiry Product will offer possible answers / solutions to your question. You will
workshop this product with your writing group, talk with me about it, then turn in your revised
draft to me for comments. Once you get back comments from me, you’ll reflect on the work
you’ve done and see what new questions arise from this work.
 
How do I get started with my Inquiry Question?
Think about writing and all it entails. What are you curious about? What do you want to know more
about? What confuses or puzzles you? What do you want to know about writing in your discipline? Go
back and have a look at your Reading Blog, your Writing to Explore pieces, and read through your
daybook entries. Peruse the table of contents in your textbook for some ideas.

You should know that it's not easy to pose a good, interesting question, and it will probably take you
several tries before you figure out what it is you're ultimately going to be exploring. Think of it as a
working question, one that will be refined and revised multiple times.

Preliminary Inquiry Question and Guidelines (Due Feb. 16)

Write a ~2-page response to the following:

a) What is your working Inquiry Question?

b) Why are you asking it? How is it related to what you’ve read and thought about in class thus far?
c) Why does this question interest you?
d) What do you already know about the issue(s) surrounding this question? (If you don't know a lot, that's
OK. Say so.)
e) How did you arrive at this question?
f) What related questions are occurring to you now that you've begun to think on paper about your
question?
g) What else seems important to jot down now, so that you'll remember it later?
 
Revised / New Inquiry Question and Guidelines (Due. March 2)
Write a ~2-page response to the following:

a) What is your revised or new working Inquiry Question?

b) How is it different from your preliminary inquiry question?
c) Why are you asking it? How is it related to what you’ve read and thought about in class thus far?
c) Why does this question interest you?
d) What do you already know about the issue(s) surrounding this question? (If you don't know a lot, that's
OK. Say so.)
e) How did you arrive at this question?
f) What related questions are occurring to you now that you've begun to think on paper about your
question?
g) What else seems important to jot down now, so that you'll remember it later?

Research Proposal Guidelines (Due March 16)

This document should be more substantial than the two inquiry question proposals (2-4 pages), and
grounded in the fundamentals of the inquiry sequence as you articulate what you wonder about, what you
already know and what you hope to learn. You want to clearly detail how you arrived at this question,
why it’s important to you, and think ahead to what kind of research you need to do and what you think
this final product will look like. You will turn in this document to me and members of your writing group.
The next week we will have a writing group conference where we review each person’s proposal.

Address the following questions:

a) What is your Inquiry Question?

b) What finally led you to this question? Explain its evolution. If there hasn’t been much change between
your initial question and the one you have here, explain why.
c) Why does this question interest you?
d) Why are you asking it? How is it related to what you’ve read and thought about in class thus far?
What are the connections you are making already?
d) What do you already know about the issue(s) surrounding this question?
e) What’s your research plan? Where do you anticipate gathering information about your topic (both
primary and secondary research)? Will you conduct interviews? Use library sources?
f) What related questions are occurring to you now that you've begun to think on paper about your
question?
g) What form do you anticipate this final product taking? Open up the possibilities for yourself.
g) What else seems import to jot down now, so that you'll remember it later?

Annotated Bibliography (Due March 28): see separate assignment sheet

Homework for Wed., 9/8 *
Final Project Due for Peer Workshop: April 4

Final Project due to me via Moodle: April 15

What this assignment will look like: You have some question that is driving your research (e.g. “Why
do we code shift when talking to different discourse communities?” “How is American Sign Language
different from Standard American English?” “Why is academic discourse often so impenetrable to the
average reader?”) Your final product will pose possible answers to these questions that you have and will,
more than likely, lead you to develop new questions by the time you finish composing. What I hope to
see you doing in these projects is exploring your topic while trying to answer your question. Enter the
conversation that’s taking place about your topic and engage your audience in your question as well.
Show why you think this topic is intriguing to you; show what you have learned about your topic with the
research that you have done; think about what this all means to you as a reader/writer and how you view
the use of written /spoken language now that you know all of this information you have studied.

Remember: There are a number of possibilities in how you compose your final project. You may write a
conventional academic paper; you may create a website; you could make a movie. You can write this in
the first person if you want. Whatever form it takes, it should be grounded in your ideas about what you
wonder about or wanted to know about with regard to some aspect of reading/writing, which means it will
be more than a mere amalgamation of facts or ideas from your research. You should make some
discoveries in the process of this assignment and aim to persuade your audience of something, not merely
inform him or her. You may be left with more questions than answers…I hope to see true engagement
with your topic.

Please remember to follow MLA format and to come up with a descriptive title for your final product.

Also, with this assignment, you will include a self-assessment. Once your draft is complete, take some
time to reflect on the work that you have done. Think about how you got to this point—from early
brainstorming to peer workshop to this revision. What do you think about your product? What are its
strengths and weaknesses? What would you have spent more time on if you’d had it? Put this self-
assessment at the beginning of your product.