Research Paper as Myspace

I was complaining to an administrator today about my frustrations over this research paper/workshop project, and when it was all through the admin (whose job it is to teach teachers how to teach) suggested that maybe the kids are still trying to figure out why they’re doing this work in the first place.

So, during the next class I told the kids about this meeting with the admin and asked: How many of you are honestly frustrated because you don’t know why we’re doing this work?

[Half the class raised their hands]

Ok, well, that makes sense, and I’m, glad that other teacher brought it up. let’s see if we can make this more understandable. Let’s see…how many of you have myspace pages?

[all but three kids raise their hands]

And how many of you know how myspace works?

[everyone]

Well, myspace is the exact same thing as a research paper. Both are examples of what you’ve learned through the things you’ve read. And believe it or not (and I know your teachers and parents will hate this, but…) they both show off how smart you are.

“You’re seriously going to talk about myspace?”

Yeah dude! Think about this. Who has the regular old myspace page? The one you get when you sign up — the plain old white page with the blue boxes?

[no one]

And how many of you have your page, as the kids these days are calling it: “pimped out?”

[everyone]

How did you figure out that in order to make your page cool that you needed to get yourself a background and a music player and a video player and cool photos and all that jazz?

“I saw this cool video on [somebody else's] page.”
“I heard this song on a band’s page and put it on mine.”
“You can only get the best backgrounds from [some website].”
“Nuh-uh! You have to go to [some other website] for the best backgrounds. Mine’s a car with the wheels spinning.”
“I have the same one by my car’s wheeels spin counter-clockwise.”

So, where’d you get all that stuff? How’d you find out how to get that stuff?

“From other myspace pages.”

Exactly. And you put all that same stuff on your pages, right?

“No way! I found my own stuff.”

Why’s that?

“‘Cause you gotta make it your own. It’s gotta be cool. You can’t do the same things everybody else does.”

Which is why your car’s wheels spin one way and [so and so's] wheels spin counter-clockwise, right?

“Yeah.”

Well, I hate to say this, but you fguys already know how to write a research paper. You already do all that stuff anyway. You find out how to make your page the best and when you do it shows off the fact that doing so is very high-level thinking.

[as soon as I said "high-level-thinking" many kids tuned out, but I tried to get them back]

Think about it! When you make a myspace page you don’t want to NOT show it off, do you? You want everyone to visit and to leave comments. That’s high level thinking because you’re concerned with making it the best possible while at the same time making the page your own. You want people to keep coming back because your page is the best page to visit. What’s so different about a research paper?

“Research papers are boring.”

They only LOOK boring, man. They only look boring. A research paper might as well be your personal myspace page. The pictures and background and all the “friends” you have listed all over that page are the same thing as the resources you use in making a research paper. For example, take a look at this — here’s a picture of your myspace page:

I know a few things are missing, but this is what you outlined. You also said you got all the knowledge about these things from other myspace pages. That’s great…you’ve made this page your own, and it stands out as a product of your own work. People lik e it because it’s new and it has something to offer your readers. Other people’s pages are boring and dumb and lame, but your page has the best of everything.

[I started drawing another image next to the first]

Now compare this to the work you do to write a research paper. What are we doing the research paper on?

“A Holocaust survivor.”

Yep. And you’ll get that information from an article I gve you. But you don’t want to write a research paper that’s just a copy of the paper you read. What do you need to give it some more information? What have we read in class that you can use to BACK UP the information about the Holocaust survivor?

[silence]

Can you use some history about WWII and the Holocaust? Do you need to back it up with some background information?

“Yeah.”

Do you have notes on the background?

“Yeah! Those website notes!”

Perfect. You have some history to back up that story. What else might you need?

[silence]

Let me give you an example. One of your fellow students is already working on his research paper. I asked him to tell me about the article he read. I asked him to tell me which camp his subject was forced to enter. He said: “But the guy didn’t go to a camp!” And I asked what happpened. If the guy didn’t go to a concentration camp, what happened? This kid told me this guy escaped through the Pyrenees mountains to find freedom.

“What?”

Yeah! I know! I kinda thought we’d all be writing about the same things, but I realized every person has a different story to tell, and this guy escaped through thePyrenees mountains. So, I told this kid: “You have to find out more about the Pyrenees! You have to find out if this guy was the only guy to do that or not! I’ll bet that if he did it, other people did it, too! We could find out a whole new story through this!”

So now, i can add to your research paper something about “conferencing with me.” We never would have foind this topic withou tthe conference, and that’s why you’ll do the same. You’ll read your article until you find something you didn’t know before and you’ll bring it to me. With a myspace page, this would be a new “friend.” With a research paper, you’ve got another source of information.

What else can we add?

[silence]

What about the articles you’re summarizing and paraphrasing right now? Can you use those as backup for you own paper?

“Yeah!”

Will that make your paper stand out from other papers?

“Yeah.”

So let’s see. We have the outline of a mysapce page. Let’s see what this paper looks like compared to it:

Huh. Interesting. I thought you guys said you didn’t know how to do this. But you’ve been doing this all along. What’s the difference?

“Well, one’s on the web and one’s not.”

But we’re going to put our papers on the web.

“Oh yeah. Well, mayyybeee…”

The only difference between a myspace page and a research paper is that…umm…well, nothing. They both require work. They both require finding out the best information trhoguh other resources. They both require help from someone else, and that both require a little showing off.

I’d say one shows off how “cool” you are and one shows off how “smart” you are, but seriously — what’s the difference?

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