Today's In-Class Work

Instead of working on my draft, I spent today's class time working on previous brainstorming activities. I am trying to narrow down the focus of my paper before I continue. Here are past in-class writing activities and pre-writing questions revisited:

Exploring the Inquiry Project Proposal

Part I: Exploration

1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your Inquiry Project.
I’m interested in looking at two related issues: first, I want to see if zines can help to engage adolescent students in classroom writing activities, and second, I want to see if zines can be an effective means of teaching the same writing skills (grammar, punctuation, organization) that are taught through traditional classroom assignments- i.e. “the research paper.”

2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
I don’t have a lot of personal experience with zines, but I do remember reading them online when I was an adolescent. I thought they were interesting because they encompassed a variety of topics, they were written by individuals my age, and they weren’t afraid to speak out against mainstream society. I have always enjoyed reading writing that “pushes the limit.”

3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
I think that zines- writing as a form of social consciousness- can be a tool to engage students interested in social life outside of the classroom to become more engrossed in the academic life within it.

4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?I already know that zines are written by people who enthusiastic about the subject matter. They are often homemade and cheap to manufacture. They have become especially popular among adolescents, who use zines both in print and on the internet. I am primarily interested in answering questions like: Can zines help bilingual students to assimilate? Are they equally popular among males and females? Can they teach students how to become better writers?

6. How might composition theorists and researchers approach or study this topic? Does
this approach differ from those of other related disciplines (such as communication studies)?
Researchers may approach or study this topic by doing actual experimentation with classroom curriculum. The findings of this study may be harder to determine than findings of studies performed in other related disciplines, like communications, because this study will take considerable time and it will involve a number of variables, some of which cannot be controlled. For example, it is nearly impossible for this study to be scientific- there is no way to determine that each student who engages writing zines comes from the same controlled situation.

7. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?
I could research this topic by contacting the authors of zines. There are plenty of individuals who I could find via the internet. I can compose a list of questions which I can send to several different zine writers regarding their personal experiences with zines.

Part II: FocusingWrite an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.

Can zines work as a means of engaging students in the classroom, and can they eventually work in lieu of the traditional ‘research paper’ as a means of teaching students writing skills like grammar, punctuation, structure, and organization?

Revisiting the Inquiry Project Proposal

When the general public considers the subject I’m working with, what are the issues, questions or concerns that they think are important to discuss? Do these questions and concerns differ from those of the scholarly discourse community?

The general public probably feels that there are several issues and concerns with the subject I’m working with. For example, zines are considered outlets for free speech. If used in the classroom, would any subject matter be censored? These probably do not differ from questions that the scholarly discourse community would have, because they involve issues of what constitutes “acceptable” let alone “scholarly” writing. In discussions of my subject, what are some of the status quo assumptions that appear to go unsaid but nonetheless seem almost universally believed? For example, if I am exploring how writing should be taught in high school, what do most people tend to believe about the kinds and amount of writing that high school students should do? What do people believe writing teachers should do to prepare students for the world beyond high school? How do people believe that teachers should respond to students’ writing?

In discussions of my subject, people probably don’t consider zines to be a useful means of teaching effective writing. In today’s high school curriculum, most instructors rely solely on use of the research paper as a means of teaching writing skills. They probably feel that there is no reason to stray from the use of research papers because they are considered scholarly and respectable among the academic community, whereas zines are not as accredited. In texts that people produce about my subject, what kinds of outcomes or results do they expect the texts to have with readers? Do writers about my subject usually expect a reader simply to consider their ideas, to believe in them strongly, to take some specific action? What?

In the texts I’ve read about my subject, people have expected the outcomes and results to be positive. However, the texts I’ve read are written by teachers who seem more liberal, whereas I’m not finding a lot of feedback from traditional writing instructors. Writers about my subject seem to state their findings as fact and more or less advocate that zines should be utilizing within classroom curriculum.


“Factness”

Whom could I talk to who could provide me with information that has factness about this question?

If I want to talk with someone who can provide me with factness, I think the best way to do this is to contact someone who is directly involved with zines. I would like to find individuals via the internet, a male and a female, who write for different zines. What could I read that would provide me with information that has factness about this question?

I could read a variety of actual zines- or read articles written by teachers who have used zines, or mothers who have seen zines work for their adolescent students.

What else could I do besides talk to people and read to acquire information or factness about this question? (Jolliffe 75)

Besides talking to people or acquiring information, I could also talk with my peers regarding this information. In casual conversation, I could see what my friends and classmates believe about adolescent writers and use of independent writing assignments.