English
331: English Authors --- Byron and Hemans.
English
331: English Authors ---
Byron and Hemans.
Spring Semester 2005
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews Hall; 472-1806
office: 1-3 TR, and by appointment
Email Stephen C. Behrendt
The Research Project Portfolio
Overview of the Project
For the portion of your course work represented by the "research project," I am going to ask you to prepare and submit a portfolio of research materials – but NOT a typical, finished "term paper." Please read on.
The "research project portfolio" is NOT meant to be a "paper" in the usual sense. By now you all know how to write the standard "English paper," so I want you instead to have some fun. I want you to spend your time working on research – on detective work, discovery, following the trails, finding new insights (and resources) – rather than on writing, so that you will be able to look at the largest and most diverse set of research materials possible. Your grade will reflect both the extent and sophistication of your research and the extent to which you suggest how all this research work (and all these materials) could be made into a really good (and interesting) paper or project, if you had the time and leisure to create that paper or project in the usual way and to the fullest extent of your abilities.
In this respect, you should think of your portfolio as an expanded set of study notes that you develop by consulting various sorts of research sources. You may go on-line, of course (remembering that many on-line sites are only as reliable as the persons who set them up, and that many contain vast numbers of errors, both of fact and of inference). Ideally, your portfolio should include at least 50% of its materials from traditional print or other "hard" media sources (books, journal articles, photographic reproductions, etc.), so that less than half of the contents will be downloads from on-line sources. Think of the Research Project Portfolio as a personal (and personalized) documentation of your own individual, private research into a topic related both to this course and to your own particular personal and career interests and expertise.
You may choose any topic that interests you, so long as it is directly connected to one or both of our primary authors (Byron and Hemans), and to any of the texts, subjects, or contexts we are examining in this course, including subject areas and approaches that you might not think of as typically "English course" ones. If you wish to run your topic by me to make sure that you are doing something appropriate, please feel free to do so. In any event, start early: you cannot do this project successfully in a hurry.
You may want to begin thinking about your Research Project Portfolio by considering the following suggestions about what the finished Portfolio should contain:
1. a cover letter or introductory statement that explains the form, format, and substance of the Portfolio as a whole. It should say why you have chosen to follow the direction you have followed, and what principles guided both (1) your research itself and (2) how or why you decided on the particular materials you've chosen to include. You should also discuss what you see as the relationship among all these materials (including your annotations on the materials) in terms of the sort of paper or other project that you might write or create from these materials. In practical terms, this statement should tell me what to expect in the Portfolio, including why the materials you have chosen are important, both for you personally and for the "picture" they help to draw of the subject you have chosen to examine. And (to repeat), it should briefly describe or explain the sort "finished product" you could create from these materials;
2. a table of contents that identifies each component in the Portfolio in the order in which they appear; and
3. the completed set of research and study materials that reflect your individual efforts better and more fully to understand the subject you have chosen as the focus for your research project. These materials may take many forms: essays and articles, visual materials, downloaded materials, original work, etc. For each item, you should provide the following information:
a. the exact source of the materials (give complete bibliographical citations for print and visual materials, complete URLs for Internet downloads);
b. a brief statement (a sentence is plenty, and it need not be a grammatically "complete" sentence, at that; it can even be in the form of a "sticky note" attached to the item) explaining why you consider the selected item important enough – or interesting enough – for inclusion; and
c. another brief comment (as in "b," above) on the item's relation to the "angle" on the course you are developing in your own work and approach (if you are attaching "sticky notes," consider using one color for "b" and a different one for "c).
4. a relatively brief summary statement that explains what the value of this entire Research Project Portfolio project has been to you. What have you learned? What did you discover that you might not have expected (including about your own interests and abilities)? What (if any) additional questions or areas of inquiry have emerged that you have not had time to pursue?
Submitting the Course Portfolio
Since our last class meeting is on Thursday, 27 April, and since our Final
Examination is on the morning of Tuesday, 3 May, I need to have your Research
Project Portfolio no later than Thursday, 21 April, so that I will be able to
return it to you at our final meeting. I will be delighted if you can give me
the portfolio earlier than that, simply because it will give me additional time
to read it and see what you have done. But I really must have it no later than
Friday, 21 April (the Friday before Dead Week).
Questions?
See me anytime, or email me. I'll be glad to help you shape your project – and even help you decide on a topic.
last update: 15 February, 2005