{"id":1439,"date":"2023-09-12T15:23:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T19:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/?page_id=1439"},"modified":"2023-09-12T15:23:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T19:23:35","slug":"developing-fruitful-research-questions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/developing-fruitful-research-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing Fruitful Research Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Emily Spitler-Lawson<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Assignments &amp; Activities Archive<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-top is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<div data-wp-interactive=\"core\/file\" class=\"wp-block-file\"><object data-wp-bind--hidden=\"!state.hasPdfPreview\" hidden class=\"wp-block-file__embed\" data=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Spitler-Lawson-AAA.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:600px\" aria-label=\"Embed of Spitler-Lawson-AAA.\"><\/object><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-35064348-f941-460b-8a3b-324b8c2c7f46\" href=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Spitler-Lawson-AAA.pdf\">Spitler-Lawson-AAA<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Spitler-Lawson-AAA.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-35064348-f941-460b-8a3b-324b8c2c7f46\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Assignment Description<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was a younger, less experienced writing instructor, I told a classroom full of first year composition students, \u201cWrite about whatever you want!\u201d when introducing a major research-based assignment. As you can probably imagine, I very quickly learned that some student-generated topics and questions were more suited to the kind of academic research the prompt (and the course outline) required than others. Despite the chaos that ensued that semester, my instincts, I think, were good. I wanted students to have agency. I knew I was about to ask them to spend considerable time and energy navigating databases, reading difficult scholarly sources, drafting, and revising, and I wanted them to do all of this in service of a question they cared about because they had <em>chosen <\/em>it. This assignment gives students considerable agency in choosing a question to explore for a high-stakes research project while at the same time setting boundaries meant to guide developing researchers to questions that are likely to lead to successful writing projects. Clear communication of instructor expectations, along with Catherine Savini\u2019s \u201cLooking for Trouble,\u201d provide a framework for the question development process, and students are given ample opportunity to develop, discuss, and reflect on possible research questions with their instructor and classmates. This assignment also suggests a way for instructors to provide quick, actionable feedback on student-generated research questions, and for students who need additional guidance to get it before they invest significant amounts of time in a question that will not serve them well. In addition to guiding students as they develop a research question, this assignment invites them to think of themselves as academic writers participating in an ongoing conversation about their topic. Ideally, developing their question helps them to understand the<em> kinds<\/em> of questions academics tend to ask, and why they ask them, and encourages students to channel their curiosity about a text in productive, academically \u201cfruitful\u201d directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emily Spitler-Lawson Assignments &amp; Activities Archive Assignment Description When I was a younger, less experienced writing instructor, I told a classroom full of first year composition students, \u201cWrite about whatever you want!\u201d when introducing a major research-based assignment. As you can probably imagine, I very quickly learned that some student-generated topics and questions were more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[217,222,568,218],"tags":[12,603,574,572,22,604],"class_list":["post-1439","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-demystifying-writing-assignments","category-prewriting-and-invention","category-research","category-secondary-source-research","tag-invention","tag-material-rhetorics","tag-new-materialism","tag-planning","tag-research","tag-topic-invention"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1439\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parlormultimedia.com\/writingspaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}