The Inquiry Approach: A First Attempt, Part 1

At my school, one of the responsibilities of teaching 11th grade American Lit is guiding the students through a research project.  "Guiding" probably is not the best word choice. How about "dragging." Why must they be dragged?  I'm sure part of it is the name and all its unpleasant connotations: THE RESEARCH PROJECT.  It sounds taxing, uniform, and out of touch.  Most students figure that this project will entail weeks of researching a topic which they had little choice in deciding and it will inevitably lead to a long paper that they will not read ever again.  It is a bit ironic that research should be seen this way.  After all, research it is something that everybody does everyday and, for the most part, on personal devices that fit in one's pocket.  Of course the difference is that this "everyday" research revolves around questions and topics that are personally relevant and meaningful.  Whether the research is regarding something insignificant, like the various places to get a good taco, something of critical importance, like the procedure for dealing with cancer that a loved one has been diagnosed with, or somewhere in between, this activity is self-directed and genuine.  Thus, most students would not label it research it all.  It's simply learning.  After years of struggling to foster this same attitude for the "research project," I decided last year to drastically change the framework.

My first decision: let the students choose any question as the basis for the project.  Next: actually make it evolve into a project, not just a paper.  With that, the "A Question That Matters" inquiry project was borne.

1. Blog Post: A Question That Matters.  Without being told that it would lead into the research, I asked students to add a post to their blogs in which they discussed a question that was meaningful for them. It did not have to concern English or school in general.  
2. Blog Post: Answering the Question in The Extreme Negative.  Borrowing an idea from Hillary Bullock, a colleague, I had students take their questions, which were pretty open-ended and dealt with topics like "success" and "regret" and had them create an answer that articulate an extreme point of view. For example, if the question was "how do I know when I have achieved success?" the student would answer by saying the ways he knows he will not be successful.  It was meant to be a way to start narrowing the question and focusing on possible answers.
3. Blog Post: Read an article. Two fantastic librarians found an article to accompany all 40+ questions.  Students read their designated article and wrote a blog post on what the article said about the question: perspectives, other questions, important sounding names, organizations, studies that are mentioned.  I also asked students to consider if they needed to refine (or even change their question).  At this point, they knew this was a part of a larger research project.
4. Introduce Evernote.  I decided to show them Evernote and "encouraged" them to use this tool to collect and reflect on their research.  Part of this was to give them one online location where they could house everything (and that they can access across devices) and to introduce them to a tool that might be beneficial in creating an digital routine for their academics.
5. Research.  They needed to find 5+ sources that provided different perspectives on their question.
6. Write a short paper.  Students wrote either informative or persuasive essays, based on their questions and what they felt they wanted t say.  Instead of this being the endpoint, however, it was only the first part of them demonstrating what they learned.  The More interesting part came next.
7. Create a multi media project. Based on what question students asked and what they discovered, they needed to figure out a way to use digital tools and/or tangible materials to say something about the question.  This is where students really struggled, but also felt challenged in a meaningful way.