You all already know how reluctant I am to give examples, but yeah, ok, I think in this case, since perhaps many of you have never seen a research proposal before, I'll go ahead and provide one for you. This one I actually created! See, it's not that hard. I did it this afternoon.
Writing Stage 3- Planning Inquiry
English 1301 Writing Project
Stage 3-Planning
Inquiry
Discussion of your
chosen construct & (mis)conceptions about that construct:
I’ve always considered myself to be a “good reader,” and
after reading Flower’s article “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the
Construction of Meaning,” I began to see why. I liked reading because I knew
that it meant to immerse yourself into the ideas of someone else, be they
fiction or nonfiction. It’s always been pretty easy for me to see reading in
this way. Flower thinks that “good readers” are good readers because they have
a lot of experience. Maybe they read a lot. Maybe they have interesting and eventful
lives which allow them an array of life experiences. I think she’s on to
something there, and I’d like to explore one other aspect of rhetorical
reading. Can that experience, too, come from playing MMORPGs?
Discussion of your research question
My research question, at this point, is “How does playing
MMORPGs affect someone’s ability to read rhetorically?”
I’m curious about this question because I think it maybe
unlocks a reason as to why I’ve always been able to read rhetorically, even
before Flower defined it for me. And
before I go off explaining why, I think it’s important to first define what an
MMORPG is. It stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The most
famous example is probably World of Warcraft. In these games, players enter
into an unfamiliar, fictional world and have to essentially make inferences as
to how it works. Players create a “toon” or an avatar that gets stronger as you
progress through the game. They experience and interact with other players, and
yes, they have to actually READ a lot in order to figure out what’s going on. A
lot of the more advanced tasks (dungeons and raids) require you to interact
with a group to finish a task you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do on your own
(like a group project), and I can remember more than once I hadn’t done my
reading (or understood it well enough), didn’t know what was going on in the
dungeon, and well, got scolded for doing it wrong and making my group “wipe.” Wipe
is gamer-speak for fail.
I don’t think this is an entirely useless or trivial
question; there’s a lot at stake here. Oftentimes, publics tend to think of
these games as wastes of time, and surely, sometimes, they really are. However,
I do feel as though there is some value to playing them, and I’m thinking that
in immersing yourself in another’s world and imagination is a whole lot like
rhetorical reading. I’m going to try and build on that connection, if for no
other reason, so I’ll have an excuse to keep playing them J
List of keywords
Looking for articles was actually easier than I’d expected.
I guess a lot of other people are also curious about the effects of MMORPGs on
learning. I just typed in MMORPG into the library database and got a wealth of
information. I also was successful in bringing up more general articles on the
benefits of playing video games from one of my favorite education blogs, MindShift.
List of relevant
sources (written as correct works cited entries) with brief annotations
Chun-Chia Lee, Shang Hwa Hsu, Jen-Wei Chang, (2013)
"Factors influencing sociability in
educational
MMORPGs – a fuzzy AHP
approach", Internet Research, Vol. 23 Iss: 3, pp.298 – 315
This article discusses how MMORPGs
encourage sociability in students, like cooperation, team-based reward,
discussion of strategy, reputation, and social navigation. It basically
concludes that MMORPGs help students be more open to socialization with one
another, because they’ve already experienced this in a virtual world. It’s not
exactly rhetorical reading, but I want to focus on “discussion of strategy” as
on effect, and tie that in to how I view rhetorical reading, because I see
social interaction and being able to discuss a reading as a relevant piece of
that puzzle.
Haas, Christina, and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading
Strategies and the Construction of
Meaning.” CCC
39.2 (1988): 167-83.
Of course – how can I get away
without using Flower? This article basically defines rhetorical reading for me
as being able to relate and connect a text to experiences and the greater
discourse. Good readers make inferences and have a sense of implicit claims
rather than just reading a text for what it is. I’m going to use this
definition of rhetorical reading as the base of my paper. I’m also pretty much
copying Flower’s process, getting students to do think alouds as they read
something. As much as I’d love to open up brains, I’ll leave that to the
neurologists.
Suh, S., Kim, S.W. and Kim, N.J. (2010), Effectiveness of
MMORPG-based instruction in elementary
English education in Korea. Journal
of Computer Assisted Learning, 26: 370–378.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00353.
Ok so this article was actually
really neat. I think it’s going to be an important source for me. The gist of
this article is that these researchers in Korea used MMORPGs to help elementary
aged kids learn English. They found that the kids they used this technique with
improved in their reading skills, their writing skills, and their teamwork
skills. So this is basically my “booyah” article here; it kind of supports my
claim. However, I’m going to have to really analyze how this author defines
“good reading” and see if it matches up with Flower’s. Also, this article is
all about little kids, and I’m focusing more on college-aged students, so my
work is still pretty original. This will be a big help for me, though.
Discussion, if
relevant, of any primary research you’d like to do.
For this project, I think primary research is going to be
essential, since from what I’ve seen so far, no one has really linked these two
ideas just yet. I plan on using a test group comprised of 6 college freshman at
UTPA. I’m choosing college freshmen because I want everyone to be relatively
similar in reading experience. Three
subjects will be “MMORPG gamers” and 3 will be people who do not play MMORPGs.
I will give the test groups a poem to read individually, and I will ask them to
reflect on their interpretation of the poem. I decided to go with a poem
because I think they require more rhetorical reading than prose, as they tend
to be a little abstract.
I will then look at the interpretations and see which
subjects used rhetorical strategies and which did not. I will be looking for
words like “purpose,” “audience,” and “theme” for evidence of rhetorical
thinking in the analyses.
Discussion of potential audiences
My audience is really going to depend on my findings. If I
find out that playing these types of games supports rhetorical reading
strategies, then I’d like to share these findings with college freshmen who
tend to struggle with rhetorical reading, or maybe even those who TEACH
rhetorical reading (people like myself!).
If my findings are that there’s no real difference, then I’d
like to share that data with other MMORPG gamers to let them know that hey, it
doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t really help that much either, so to proceed with
moderation. The same goes for if I find that it actually hurts people’s
abilities, which is of course a possibility.
Discussion of
potential purposes
Again, this is going to depend on my findings. If I find that
there is a positive effect on students’ rhetorical reading abilities, then I’ll
use my research to ENCOURAGE struggling students to maybe try this as a
strategy to improve their rhetorical reading skills. If my findings are less
than encouraging, then I think my purpose would be to warn MMORPG players that
their time may be better spent elsewhere.
For me, the real purpose is kind of personal, too. I’m
genuinely curious about these findings, and hope to justify one of my seemingly
useless hobbies as being at least in part beneficial to me as a reader and
thinker.
Discussion of
potential forms/genres
I think it would be interesting and fun to meet MMORPG
players where you can find them. I often find myself perusing blogs about these
games in order to find strategies, so one way to reach these players would be
to create an article/blogpost to put on one of those venues. I would try to
avoid using overly technical words, to keep it interesting and maybe even a
little entertaining for the readers. Another idea would be like a tutorial
youtube style video, as a lot of times I find myself looking up those for
instructions on how to do something in the game. I might decide to create one
of those for MMORPG players with some interesting title like “How to be a
Kingslayer in College” or “How to
Totally PWN College English”
Maybe you could leave ME some feedback? :D I was also thinking about doing a research question that looks into nanowrimo (does anyone else do that? that's another crazy hobby of mine).
A few reminders:
On MONDAY, we won't have formal class. However, you're welcome to bring a rough draft of your Stage III assignment by my office for some feedback. I'm in ARHU 269A and I'll be there from 7:45am to 11:30pm.
Your other option is to do the "
book a librarian" if you're having trouble finding sources.
On WEDNESDAY we will have a quiz over Sommers
On FRIDAY your Stage III drafts are due to me. You'll only need to bring one copy.
