Part I: Exploration
1. Identify the issue or problem that you plan to focus on in your research project.
-- The effects on students, and others, after desegregation in schools.
2. What is your personal connection to and interest in this topic?
-- I have always gone to very diverse schools and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Plus, if schools were segregated, where would I go, being biracial?
3. What opinions do you already hold about this topic?
-- I feel everyone has the right to get the same education.
4. What knowledge do you already have about this topic?
-- I know a little bit about the Brown v. Board case, and plan to use it in the paper.
5. What are your main questions about this topic? What are you most curious about?
-- I want to know how people really felt about the desegregation, especially in schools, and how it affected their lives.
6. Within what scholarly discipline (such as history, biology, psychology) do you expect to do most of your research? How does this discipline approach or study this topic?
-- I expect to do most of my research within history books and historical websites. I feel that history approaches this topic objectively and will give a fair account of how everything really happened.
7. How could you research this topic outside the library (for example, through interviews and/or observations)?
-- I could observe and/or interview here at school how people feel about going to school in a diverse community. This will show long term effects of the desegregation.
Part II: Focusing
Write an initial claim, or an open-ended question, to guide your research on this topic. Make it specific but exploratory. Remember that a good claim opens up an area of inquiry about a topic; a claim should invite evidence, support, and debate.
-- How has desegregation in schools affected our country?
4 comments:
I think that you can show the effect of desegregation on the american citizens. However, I am just wondering if you can prove the effect of desegregating schools, like academic improvements or societal improvements, or both of them? I am just confused on the orientation of the topic.
I think this is an excellent, yet very serious topic. Especially since you are biracial, this is a very personal topic as well. I am interested to see what your facts are. This topic will enhance many arguments, but where do you plan to go with it? Like the guy said above me, are you going to show differences in academic improvement etc?
The way that you are approaching this is interesting to me. I think the effects of desegregation would be easy enough to gauge; there are probably studies out there from the Brown vs. Board era that delve into that. What's wierd is that I thought this kind of question would have been void in today's societ since it seems like it is universally held that a diverse school atmosphere is beneficial. However, with the recent Jena 6 case, I can see that some people don't feel that way. Maybe you could bring that up in your paper.
I would find this a interesting paper to read. I would really like to see what you write about this. I definetly think this would be a great topic.
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