Choosing a Topic
Remember, you should be looking at topics that affect a community that you belong to. In the past, my students have written about all sorts of topics. For example, topics have included:
- Mental health in the Black community (specifically men)
- Bullying in a school community (chose a specific grade level)
- Violence against the Trans community (specifically trans women)
- Maternal Mortality in the Black Community
- Breastfeeding
- Arts programs losing funding
- Issues for students related to DACA
- Etc.
Please keep in mind that these are broad topics and would need to be narrowed to be most effective/suitable for your essay.
We begin with these broad topics and then start to ask questions that are meant to guide our research. For example, I can take a broad topic from above like breastfeeding and start to look at its significance. I might imagine that I want to focus on parents/mothers as a community, or I may want to get more specific and look at breastfeeding among another community like women under 30, or African American mothers, etc.
From here, I may start to research my topic and will learn things like breastfeeding rates are lower among the 2 age groups above. so I might ask why.
Why are breastfeeding rates lower among African American women?
What are the barriers to breastfeeding for young mothers?
These are big questions, but they will be helpful to me as I begin to look for articles. As I learn more, I want to reframe my question to be look at the problem/solution model, so I can ask questions that will better help me understand the problem and look for solutions:
How can African American women receive the support they need to successfully breastfeed their children?
I now have some clear questions that will help guide my research. The last question is written in a way that if I answer it, it will help me to create my thesis later on.
Communities in ActionEssay 3: Research PaperYour Task:
Choose a community you belong. Through careful research, identify a problem affecting your community and write a 1800-2000 word persuasive research paper that clearly establishes the issue and presents a solution.
In this paper you will:
- define the problem,
- show what others have already said about it,
- propose a solution to the problem
- give reasons why your solution will be effective at helping solve the problem,
- respond to potential opposition to your stance,
- design your claims, reasons, and evidence to best convince a specific audience of your choosing, and
- Cite a minimum of 5 sources that you located through research tasks.
We will work through this assignment by breaking it up into smaller, more manageable parts. Each week, you will have assignments that will help you to complete your research, define your problem, organize your findings, and develop your paper.
You will complete the following tasks:
- Research Question and Explanation (due Week 13)
- Outline (due Week 14)
- Background and Introduction (due Week 14)
- Lines of Argument and Counter Argument (due Week 15)
- Rough Draft-putting it all together (Due Week 16)
- Revised Draft (Due Finals Week)
Earn an ‘A’Requirements:
Your grading contract outlines the requirements for earning a ‘B’ grade in the course. If you are working toward earning an ‘A’ you need to meet all the requirements for a ‘B’ AND complete an additional task for Writing Task 3
Your Task:
Choose a specific audience who you would like to persuade to adopt the solution to the problem you have identified in your research paper.
Examples of specific audiences include parents at your child’s school, MV city council, MVC administrators, California voters, etc.
Create a document that will deliver your message in an appropriate way to the audience. Some examples include:
- brochure or pamphlet,
- poster,
- presentation slides,
- infographic,
- video,
- letter to the editor, etc.
Present your research and solution to your audience, keeping in mind their informational needs. In other words, there is no way to include your entire paper in a document meant to be shared with a wide audience. You must carefully select the information that you believe will persuade the audience to act.
Above all, be creative and have fun! The goal is to persuade the audience you’ve chosen to consider/adopt your solution(s), so be compelling!
Remember that this assignment is in addition to your Research paper.
