Thursday, March 4, 2010

Inquiry-based Writing

What we've been doing the past month or so is definitely something new to most young college students. Writing with a question in mind while in first-person narrative is strange, particularly because students are used to thesis-driven writing (i.e., the closed-form essay).

However, I would submit that asking interrogative questions or, in other words, inquiring about what lies beneath the surface is something that each of us does--to some degree--on a regular basis.

My expectation is that each student learns quite a bit during the discovery essay process. So I want each student to respond to the following prompt: what have you learned during your discovery essay process (e.g., something about yourself, something new from a source, something about the writing process, etc.)? What obstacles were present as you went about researching and writing? Is inquiry-based writing important, irrelevant, or just plain weird (please explain)?

Your individual responses are due by Monday, March 8th. Please sign your blog response at the end (if your user profile does not already include your name), and if anyone has a problem posting her/his response, email it to me before Monday, and I will cut and paste it for you.