Reimagining the FYC Research Paper: Letter to a New GSI

In the middle of a lesson on relative clauses and appositives, one of my students raised her hand and said, “I don’t mean to be a brat, but why are we learning this?” I launched into an explanation of the genre of an inquiry report or a literature review, as the project was slated, and how appositives and relative clauses are stylistic devices that enhance a source’s credentials. Given the genre, the reader cares about the reliability of the sources used, and blah, blah, blah. Students then expressed confusion about the genre we were working in. I brought up some examples and walked students through the assignment description. This same student then said, “Oh, so it’s just an info dump.”

            Obviously, this lesson sent me into a bit of a wobble. I was grateful for her honesty, of course, but I wasn’t satisfied with my responses to her questions. Surely, the genres we teach in First-Year Composition (FYC) are not mere “info dumps” but complex and multifaceted projects. At least, the process has been modified in such a way as to encourage complex and multifaceted thinking. The inquiry report, for example, is localized in peacemaking, teaching students to conduct thorough research on a controversial topic and put conflicting sources in productive conversation. Had I taught it wrong? Where had I misstepped? I had read the assignment description and explained the purpose of the genre and the work that it did—how had it not clicked for one of my students (and, let’s be honest, probably several of my students)? How had she not seen the relevance?

            This, in turn, got me thinking—did I see the relevance?

            There was something missing—an urgency, an investment not connected to deadlines or the gradebook. Where was the engagement? In grading my students’ inquiry reports, any urgency or investment on my part was solely connected to deadlines or the gradebook. Grading felt perhaps as taxing as researching and writing these massive reports must have felt for my students. I’m being too cynical; it wasn’t all bad. My students’ papers were sharp, full of solid sources and moments of genuine interest. I was most engaged in grading their papers when I could clearly see their excitement about a thread of an idea, an interesting source, or an unexpected connection. (It wasn’t when I saw them using relative clauses or appositives, though I was proud.) There were flashes of passion, moments of delight and surprise. But passion, delight, and surprise did not seem to be the center-point of the project. At least not as I had taught it. If they were—if the assignment prioritized engagement—would my realist student have seen it as “just an info dump”?

            So, what if passion, delight, and surprise—in addition to other self-motivated terms like curiosity or openness—were the center-point of this major research paper? After combing back through my notes from an undergraduate course in composition pedagogy, I found that the umbrella terms I was searching for were “authentic” and “meaningful.” I’m interested in the following: What are the benefits of emphasizing authenticity and meaningful writing in FYC? What might that look like for this monster research report, this mislabeled “info dump”? And how might we revise or recontextualize it in ways that help students see it as a meaningful project?

Reevaluating the Research Paper

            My student probably would have enjoyed the book by Steven Posusta titled Don’t Panic: The Procrastinator’s Guide to Writing an Effective Term Paper (You know who you are). It is pretty self-explanatory, but it is basically a list of tried-and-true templates and shortcuts to writing standard academic papers like the research report or the argumentative essay. Posusta hilariously (though perhaps more accurately than we’d like to admit) claims that “the writing process can be completed in just one night, although . . . two are best.” The research paper, as Posusta sees it, is an “act of producing,” a copy/paste, void of “originality or commitment” (Davis and Shadle 418–19). Posusta might agree that a literature review is, yep, just an info dump—a tight-templated one in which he would gladly provide some tips and tricks.

            Richard L. Larson (who is, by his own admission, not cynical about standard research assignments) claims that a “research paper” is not a form or genre but nebulous, lacking identity. The research paper can be anything. Larson fears it is becoming more of a “messenger service”:

A student is told that for this one assignment, this one project, he or she must go somewhere (usually the library), get out some materials, make some notes, and present them to the customer neatly wrapped in footnotes and bibliography tied together according to someone’s notion of a style sheet. (816)

            The original intent of the research paper, which was integrated into graduate studies as early as the 1860s, was to “[favor] originality and [call] for the creation of knowledge” to “demonstrate the writer’s place in the society of knowers by increasing the society’s store of knowledge.” Thus, the research paper served a personal and collaborative purpose—contributing to the growth of the writer and collective intellect. The research paper has since become, as evidenced by Larson’s term “messenger service,” a collection and regurgitation of existing knowledge. Scholars Robert Davis and Mark Shadle claim that “freshman research writing not only . . . introduce[s] students to the already known, [but] also . . . enforce[s] a set of rules about the ownership of the known” (Davis and Shadle 423–425).

            Most scholars would not argue to nix the research assignment but to revise or recontextualize it in ways that afford it more bearing and benefit to students. David and Shadle propose what they call “alternative research writing,” which attempts to get back to the intended purpose of the research paper by emphasizing the pursuit of knowledge over the possession of it. Research should “sustain the experiential excitement of not knowing” and mix “the personal and public and [value] the imagination as much as the intellect.” Alternative research writing should “follow questions wherever the winding trail in discourse that is dialogic, Protean, and playful [takes them] while also passionately engag[ing] in the act of seeking itself” (421–423). To me, this sort of writing seems to prioritize passion, delight, and surprise over Posusta’s templates. It seems authentic, meaningful, and what I’m looking to prioritize in potential revisions or recontextualizations of our FYC’s research paper, the inquiry report.

            In addition to alternate assignments proposed by other researchers and instructors, we’ll discuss later the alternative assignments proposed by David and Shadle. First, I’d like to discuss authentic, meaningful writing projects—how are they defined? What qualifies?

Meaningful Writing Assignments

            Perhaps the best definition of meaningful writing is the J. Walter Thompson copywriter ad that scholar Grant Wiggins discusses in his article on the topic: “fearless, fresh, more or less brilliant stuff.” I love this definition. It’s accessible, broken down, and, frankly, real. Wiggins continues, saying that “the point of writing is to have something to say and make a difference in saying it.” It should “open the mind or heart of a real audience—cause a fuss, achieve a feeling, start some thinking” (29–30). For Wiggins and others, meaningful writing requires actual exigencies, meaning that the assignment or task can truly extend beyond the classroom and the gradebook. My research will explore pedagogical practices that welcome this “fearless, fresh, more or less brilliant stuff” from our students.

            Eodice et al. conducted a comprehensive study on the components of meaningful writing assignments. Over seven hundred students across three universities were interviewed and/or surveyed on their perspectives of what made certain assignments meaningful. They consistently found that students prioritized “opportunities or freedom to pursue topics of interest, to connect those topics to what they had a passion for or had experienced, and to map their meaningful writing projects to their future writing and professional identities” (33). First, students value projects that are “agentive,” allowing for “creative freedom” and discovery. This includes allowing for passionate and relevant topic choice, carving opportunities for students to get involved with community members or groups. One student presented their research to “major state political and educational figures”; another “volunteered at a food shelter in Jamaica.” These agentive projects also include encouraging students to see how their writing choices in our classroom can translate to future classrooms and contexts. One student said the analytical work he’d done in the course would benefit his future artistic career by requiring him to submit and defend his work to “juried exhibitions”; another acknowledged the need to write “clearly and concisely” in their field of environmental science (38–40).

            Eodice et al. also noted the role of engagement “as the conceptual glue that connects student agency (including students’ prior knowledge, experience, and interests) and its ecological influences (peers, family, and community) to the structures and cultures of school” (58). Affording students agency in writing projects doesn’t magically make the project meaningful, not if students aren’t engaged in the task. Engagement can take many different colors, including dialogic relationships with instructors and peers, collaboration, personal investment in presentation (presenting a project to a real-world, real-consequence audience such as conferences and student journals), and process (investment in a taxing and complex project) (65). Additionally, students found projects more meaningful when they were prompted to engage with new topics and challenged to explore new content or write in new genres (83–84).

            Anne Elrod Whitney proposes another set of components for the meaningful writing project, referring to them as “commitment” to “authentic” genre, process, audience, and teachers and students. Commitment to authentic genres means we refer to genres as they appear in real life (“travel essays, book reviews, advice columns”) and that we pull in real-world mentor texts or models. When students ask clarifying questions concerning the form or content of the genre they’re writing in, we refer them to these models. A potential assignment consists of having students conduct a “writing audit,” where they “document every act of writing they see over the course of” however many days, to see how people write outside of school.

            Commitment to an authentic process means that we talk about and show compassion for the struggles inherent in writing, and we incorporate flexibility into the writing process. We could have students keep process logs and set process goals; let our students see us write and see our process; or name strategies and create a list of “process moves” as a class. Authentic audiences are those with “expectations, interpretations, interests, and questions . . . audiences who sometimes even reply to what has been written.” We could choose to let some projects begin with an audience (content and genre following) or ask students to write two versions of a project directed at different audiences. We could position small peer groups as the audience, invite community members, and engage in dialogue with students based on the responses they want or expect from their audience. Lastly, to cultivate authentic students, Whitney stresses that we must be authentic teachers, meaning we show “students what [our] real, unfinished, in-process writing looks like.” We discuss what we’re “like” when we write, e.g., “excited, nervous, scared, self-critical, daydreamy” (16–20).

Alternative Research Papers

            When I was in elementary school, I signed up for an after-school writing club—just for fun. I don’t remember much besides choosing to write a research paper filled with photos and my amateur synthesis of popular sources on bats, of all things. Again, this was for fun and by choice. I was interested in something (bats) and wanted to a) learn more, and b) package my findings in some presentable fashion. My writing process was driven entirely by curiosity and the desire to share what I found. When we think of the research paper in an academic context, the concept of writing because we’re curious—nevermind writing for fun—may seem a bit beside the point. At least, when we’re composing our rubrics for these papers, we’re not concerned with whether students are engaged in the project, just that they hit x, y, and z standards. We’re not teaching engagement, after all, are we?

            Well, maybe we should be. We should at least incorporate it into our assignments. Kevin Michael Klipfel says that “one way educators can facilitate authenticity in the classroom is by helping students develop research questions that authentically interest them” (Armstrong 6). I hope that the previous review of sources on authenticity and meaningful writing tasks has given some grounding for what they are and why they’re useful, as well as a loose sketch of how they might be applied in the composition classroom—albeit in broad strokes. The latter part of this paper will discuss several alternative writing assignments aligned with aspects of authenticity as previously discussed: agency, creativity, and purpose. These assignments are fueled by curiosity—the same that possessed me to write a paper about bats, or a friend of mine to write one on Amanda Bynes—while not relinquishing vital objectives. In other words, these assignments teach students what the classic research paper is intended to convey, while emphasizing creativity, exploration, risk, and openness—which, I argue, directly increase student engagement and, thus, student learning.

Personal Writing

            Composition instructor Nancy Mack wrote a very well-researched and practical article discussing how composition assignments can be made more meaningful when constructed around our students’ lived experiences. She claims that most of the writing tasks posed to students lack marginalized “voices” and “social realities,” alienating students who can’t relate to the typical writers of peer-reviewed academic sources (“Marginalized Students”). Likewise, Eodice et al. emphasize the importance of welcoming students’ unique life experiences, their “funds of knowledge” or “incomes.” They argue that by doing so, writing can help students “form identities” within their communities and academic disciplines (5, 81). Eodice et al. quote John M. Dirkx, who claims that in order for writing tasks “to be meaningful, what is learned has to be viewed as personally significant in some way; it must feel purposive and illuminate qualities and values of importance to the person” (33).

            Mack’s alternative assignment is an ethnographic research report. This project extends sources of knowledge beyond the library database and into the students’ immediate, lived environments (“Writing For Change” 22). Students observe accessible social settings, collect coded field notes, and keep a “reflective process journal” (“Marginalized Students”). Some of Mack’s students’ projects consisted of: “[analyzing] types of customers at Big Lots, a discount store,” “[critiquing] a power drama among workers in the deli department,” “[analyzing] what people said and how they behaved during their first requests for assistance” at a funeral home, and “parental sex roles in families eating dinner at McDonald’s” (“Marginalized Students”; “Writing For Change” 22). Each of these projects was meaningful to students because they intersected with their daily lives; the sources for students’ research were people and places they crossed paths with. Mack argues that this data collection of “folk, or nonelite, cultures” encourages students to locate agency in their ability to produce knowledge and be more equipped and confident to approach scholarly texts (“Writing For Change” 22–23).

            Davis and Shadle propose a personal research paper—similar to Macrorie’s “I-Search”— that “allows students to formally think about subjects to which they feel intimately connected.” Students chase curiosities, pulling from published sources and conducting interviews when relevant. These papers are typically “chronological” and follow a “narrative structure” that captures the writer’s research in process. In the spirit of Davis and Shadle’s concept of “alternative research writing,” these papers don’t attempt to resolve a question prematurely but suggest a “tentative, perhaps temporary, conclusion” or “[redirect] the question.” Successful personal research papers select “open-ended questions that are both personal and public” (so instead of “Should I be a Disc Jockey?”, instructors may steer the student to something like, “Why does radio fascinate?”) and “syncretic” in that they pull from a variety of “modes, genres, and . . . media” as well as “disciplines and perspectives” (Davis and Shadle 429). Not only does this assignment intersect with student interests, but it is geared toward an authentic audience—the student. Students follow a question whose findings influence their lives, choices, and perspectives.

Multimodal Writing

            Jodie Shipka, a staple name in composition multimodality research, advocates for writing projects that capitalize on the multiple and flexible channels of communication in texts—texts being broadly defined as “something that is purposefully (though not always successfully) engineered in ways that convey meaning to a particular audience,” and thus include videos, tactical crafts, collages, etc. (222). Davis and Shadle say multimodal projects offer “a full world of expression and communication in which the visual arts, video, music, noise, textures, even smells and tastes work in complex relations with writing” (431). Thus, meaning-making is extended beyond written text, and students are opened to multiple means of communicating their research. The proposed projects described below use multiple modes and/or genres and encourage personal writing while still teaching students how to conduct, collect, and present thorough research.

            Similarly, Davis and Shadle propose what they call a “multi-genre/media/disciplinary/cultural research project.” This project is a collection of assignments, extended over time and coalescing into a multifaceted portfolio. Students first write an “inquiry contract” in which they agree to write about a topic via several different writing tasks and utilizing a spectrum of rhetorical choices. These writing tasks include a reflective piece, where students recall what they already know about their selected topic; an informative piece, where they report on their research findings; an “exploration” piece, where they raise additional questions; and a “working documents” piece, where they write to persuade public opinion. The standard research paper is thus cut up, redistributed, and recontextualized; students are afforded a choice in topic, genre, and audience for each of the required pieces, which encourages critical thinking and creativity (431–2). Student topics included “angels, Schoedinger’s cat experiment, theories of the end of the world, massage, autism, the mysteries of tea, the Grand Canyon, the color blue, the Shroud of Turin, the Taiwanese language/dialect, the religion of television, masks, islands, Proppian interpretation of dreams, the concept of the “soulmate,” the birth of punk rock, and debates over the literary canon” (435). Clearly, the sky is the limit.

            Another reiteration of this project is Tom Romano’s biographical research projects, where students select a public figure of interest, such as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, Maya Angelou, and compose a multi-generic report modeled after Michael Ondaatje’s novel in verse, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. The purpose of this project is to give students the opportunity to write diverse texts coalescing around a topic. Romano says his students’ writing was generally “versatile,” and their visions were “complex”; he says, “I have never read anything like these papers” (Davis and Shadle 433–4).

            Eller and Plottel reframe the research paper within the genre of a fanzine or “zine,” which are essentially mini booklets that are self-produced and circulated. The genre of a zine is contextually rich in and of itself, constructed to “share knowledge among marginalized groups.” Zines evolved alongside 1960s social activist movements “as groups sought affordable means to distribute political ideas.” Using various model texts and provided materials like magazines, markers, stickers, and craft supplies, students create their own zine that reflects, as the cultural history of zines displays, intersections between the personal and public (think Davis and Shadle’s personal research essays). Example themes included a student’s band origin story inspired by a chord semantic in one of the model zines and another student’s South Asian heritage portrayed through clipped images from fashion magazines.

            The zine project is beneficial partly because it can teach students that “authority is constructed and contextual,” meaning it relocates authority from outside, academic and vetted sources to the student in the context of their personal experiences; it opens conversations on “how authority is conceived and helps students recognize that expertise may take on different forms depending on the nature of what is being discussed” (think Mack’s ethnographic research essay). Secondly, the project redefines “information creation as a process” by providing students with a creative license to convey a message in a limited space. These “messages” must be “powerful yet succinct and [students must] confront [their] choices to include or exclude information.” Lastly, the project reframes “scholarship as conversation,” which harkens back to the original intentions of the research paper (to locate the writer within a “society of knowers” and to contribute to “society’s store of knowledge” as Davis and Shadle say), by helping the writer locate themselves within and contribute to a larger conversation. By generic definition, “zinesters are creating their own narratives, which subvert and challenge mainstream viewpoints and realities.” Thus, the genre of a zine helps students see themselves as “actively contributing an argument to a larger discussion, rather than being passive listeners or readers” (100–106).

            Owens and Voorhees use infographics to represent students’ ideas and research. Though these instructors teach art-based classes, principles of research and rhetoric still apply. Their project is foregrounded in fascination, consisting of a thorough brainstorming session in which students “interrogate objects” to discover research questions. The theory is that “everyday objects [are] carriers of information,” capable of provoking involved and unique questions. Owens and Voorhees bring up the example of a T-shirt and potential routes to explore: “What experiences has that shirt been through? What does it say about its owner? . . . Where was that shirt produced? What cultural associations could be associated with this shirt’s design?” Students conduct research and represent their findings visually through art pieces and infographics (205–222).

Digital Writing

            Annie Armstrong describes our current state as a “hyper-evolving media landscape” with “myriad, mushrooming, and hybridized formats.” Utilizing digital platforms and channels to compose and communicate is becoming increasingly popular in FYC and beyond as we work to prepare students for their future disciplines and professions. Rather than get bogged in technical difficulties and the complicated web of digital complexities, Armstrong advocates that we reframe technology as “research playgrounds” (3). All the aforementioned projects can be digitized—even the standard research paper—and they often include digital aspects due to their multigene, multimodal formats. The following suggested research project directly engages with a digital platform.

            Within the comprehensive text Embracing Change: Alternatives to Traditional Research Writing Assignments, two articles discuss the opportunities afforded by the long-forbidden Wikipedia. Yes, Wikipedia. Actually, working within Wikipedia can encourage “critical thinking around sources” and evaluation of “authority” and credibility. Couture et al. propose an “Edit-a-thon” where students edit Wikipedia pages. Students are split into groups and assigned both a presentation topic and a technical writing assignment; for example, “technical aspects of editing,” “meeting Wiki’s research standards,” and “[selecting] a topic and entry of interest.” Groups are assigned by student interest or major. Students thus teach each other rhetorical strategies tied to research and editing while also conducting research for an authentic audience—Wikipedia’s public platform (153–157). Miller and La Valle claim that shifting the research paper to writing for Wikipedia allows students to “gather, evaluate, and synthesize information,” emphasizing the production of and contribution to public knowledge (170). Accordingly, student work doesn’t sit static in a file on their laptops but actively contributes to collective knowledge. This project foregrounds authentic audience and purpose and fosters space for dialogic learning, bringing students together through the research process.

Conclusion

            A previous student of mine was fascinated with a speech by Tony Seba titled “Clean Disruption” and told me twice (I think he forgot he’d told me the first time) about this moment in the presentation when Seba points to a photo of the 1900 NYC Easter parade and asks: “Where are the cars?” and then points to a photo of the same parade 13 years later and asks: “Where are the horses?” I’m not sure why this got him going, but it really did. Maybe it indicated some larger truth—the patterns of invention and obsolescence? Maybe he sees it as the origin point of his interest in self-automated vehicles. Anyway, he was thrilled with it. I recall clearly the excitement in his eyes and voice, how he paused after quoting, “Where are the cars?” to gauge my shock and awe. This student had discovered something that flicked a switch inside of him and got him almost squirming with the desire to tell people about it.

            I compare this with my recent discovery of a theory text on omniscient narration and how this information—so intricately tied to my interests and passions—got me buzzing. Genuinely buzzing and flitting about my seminar classrooms, needing to tell (and telling) everybody. I went to see my thesis chair and said, “I’ve been so excited to tell you—” and launched into a passionate synthesis of my research.

            It is largely because of moments like these that I’m in graduate school and teaching. These flashes of passion and excitement, this willingness to “follow questions [along] the winding trail” of “dialogic . . . and playful” discourse, and the payoff of discovering something unique and wonderful and seeming to belong, in part, to you, to be yours (Davis and Shadle 423). The alternative research projects I’ve described attempt to carve a space where these positive feelings toward learning can take root. This seems incredibly relevant at BYU, where we aim to foster lifelong learning. Helping students discover the joy inherent in the research process is one way of doing so.

            One question that will linger after this essay is: How do we know if students are finding that joy? If they’re engaged? If these assignments have successfully reframed research as exploration and discovery? Eodice et al. centered their research on students’ experiences. They asked students what made assignments meaningful to them. Likewise, to know if our students are engaged, we have to talk to them about engagement, open a dialogue around the project, and look for sparks of excitement, intrigue, or curiosity in their eyes, voice, writing. Is there something there that extends beyond deadlines, beyond the gradebook? Is there something that bleeds into the personal? On the flipside, how do we feel when reading their papers? Is there an inkling, even, of what Tom Romano thought when reading his students’ multigene biographical research projects: “I have never read anything like these papers” (Davis and Shadle 433–4)?