Supplement 1: Research Options for Project-based Assignments 

One of the most exciting things about project-based learning is how much choice students and instructors have in terms of topics and genres. How you teach students to conduct and
demonstrate research depends on key factors that include the discipline you are teaching in, the goals you have set for the project, and each student’s prior knowledge and interest base they bring to the classroom.

Because there are so many different project combinations and possibilities, this resource lists some of the basic genres common in university-based projects and ends with some options for how students might document their research in a genre-relevant way. Within each of these basic genres, there are suggestions for research the student might conduct to better understand the problem their project is addressing (content-based research) and suggestions for research the student might do to better understand the primary genre their project will take (genre-based research). Many projects combine genres, and it is perfectly acceptable to combine modes and methods of research accordingly. For student samples of such projects, see the Minor in Writing Capstone section of the Sweetland Center for Writing’s website. The Minor in Writing Program offers students in disciplines across the university an opportunity to devise a semester-long project of their own making.

Resource-based Projects (i.e. educational and/or promotional pamphlets, websites, speeches)

Content-based Research Might Include

  • Background on the history of your topic or problem
  • Debates or misunderstandings about your topic or problem
  • New breakthroughs or challenges regarding your topic or problem
  • Other educational sources, promotional sources, or speeches for the topic or problem
    you are working on in order to understand what has already been done and what your
    project can uniquely offer
  • Field research including interviews or film/photography footage

Genre-based Research Might Include

  • Rhetorics of argument—including learning more about pathos, ethos, logos, warrants, and logical fallacies
  • Multimedia rhetorics—including how readers approach online sources, effective practices to combine images, links, videos, sound, with words
  • Other educational sources, promotional sources, or speeches for any topic or problem in order to learn basic composition techniques and strategies you would like to borrow
    or avoid
  • Technological research—including anything you need to learn about the software, templates, or equipment you’ll be using for this project

Analysis-based Projects (i.e. topic analysis, media analysis, process analysis, academic analysis)

Content-based Research Might Include

  • Background on the history of your topic or problem
  • Debates or misunderstandings about your topic or problem
  • Close reading of primary or secondary texts
  • Other analytical sources for the topic or problem you are working on in order to understand what has already been done and what your project can uniquely offer
  • Compare/contrast pieces about the topic or problem

Genre-based Research Might Include

  • Rhetorics of other analysis-based arguments—including options for how to identify and separate different visual or verbal structures for analysis
  • Multimedia rhetorics—including how readers are affected by images, links, videos, sound, word combinations that are relevant to what you are analyzing
  • Other analytical sources on any topic of issue to learn their basic composition techniques and strategies you would like to borrow or avoid
  • Technological research—including anything you need to learn about the software, templates, or equipment you’ll be using for this project

Investigative Projects (i.e. immersive journalism, ethnographies, case studies, long-form feature journalism)

Content-based Research Might Include

  • Background on the history of your topic or problem
  • Debates or misunderstandings about your topic or problem
  • A compilation of previous experience to understand your subject position within this topic or problem
  • Other investigative sources for the topic or problem you are working on in order to understand what has already been done and what your project can uniquely offer
  • Field work including interviews, surveys, observations, film/photograph footage

Genre-based Research Might Include

  • Rhetorics of other analysis-based arguments—including options for how to identify and separate different visual or verbal structures to analyze
  • Multimedia rhetorics—including how readers are affected by images, links, videos, sound, word combinations that are relevant to what you are analyzing
  • Other investigative sources on any topic or issue to learn their basic composition techniques and strategies you would like to borrow or avoid
  • Technological research—including anything you need to learn about the software, templates, or equipment you’ll be using for this project

Creative Projects (i.e. creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, screenplays)

Content-based Research Might Include

  • Background on the history of your topic or problem
  • Other creative writing that deals with the topic or problem you are working on in order to understand what has already been done and what your project can uniquely offer
  • Field work including interviews, surveys, observations, film/photograph footage

Genre-based Research Might Include

  • Literary devices and techniques—including information about how to create successful choices in terms of point of view, character, dialogue, and scene setting
  • Other creative writing on any topic or issue to learn basic composition/structural techniques and strategies you would like to borrow or avoid
  • Technological research—including anything you need to learn about the software, templates, or equipment you’ll be using for this project

Options for Documenting Research in All Genres

Have students document the research they’ve done in a way that is appropriate for their project genre. For instance, if they are writing an academic article, it would be appropriate to have in-text citations and a bibliography or list of works cited at the end of their project. If they are making an educational resource, it would be immensely useful to have annotated links to other resources. If they’re doing a creative piece, they might write short, reflective pieces about their research throughout, or they might choose to write an introduction or afterword. Asking students to research the way the genre they’re working in refers to other sources will help them see there are already standards and pre-existing expectations they should follow. In addition, asking students to consider their audience as they think about what research they want to show and how will remind them that their project is one point in a larger conversation. How can they demonstrate their research in a way that invites their audience into this conversation?

Options for Demonstrating Research:

  • Bibliography (if it’s clear elsewhere in their project how they were using these sources)
  • Annotated bibliography
  • Reflective Introduction or Afterword
  • Annotations throughout the piece
  • Blog entries
  • Annotated links
  • Drafts or project-in-process documents

Supplement 2: Assessment and Feedback Options for Project-based Assignments

Assessment

Clear rubrics are essential for project-based work so that students know when and how their work will be assessed. Because successful projects build relevant course content knowledge as well as skill sets students are genuinely invested in, the best kind of assessment measures both instructor-driven and student-driven outcomes. In this way, assessment can be rigorous and in accordance with course goals while at the same time allowing for individual student goals.

Options for rubrics that include both instructor and student-driven goals include

  • Instructor-created rubric with one or two empty categories that students create
  • Two rubrics—one created by the instructor and the other created by the student after a successful proposal stage (it’s difficult for students to generate concrete categories before this stage)
  • A collaboratively created rubric by the class after everyone completes a successful proposal

Feedback

Because projects often span half or the full fifteen weeks of the semester, it is important to give students enough feedback so they feel confident and invested enough in their work to continue. Determine when these feedback options will occur before the project begins and make these decisions transparent to your students. Varying the kinds of feedback students receive helps them best experience multiple audiences and perspectives and reminds them that approaches to problems can, and should, be varied.

  • Options for Feedback: private conference with the instructor, written feedback from the instructor, presentations followed by Q & A-style feedback from classmates, small group discussions, written peer responses, a tally of completed tasks
  • Common Stages for Scheduled Feedback: 1) Proposal that includes a clear articulation of the problem they are addressing as well as a guiding question for their research 2) Production plan that includes a rough calendar and outline of the work they plan to do for the project 3) Research checkpoint 4) Partial project draft 5) Full project draft

Other Project Work Options For Students:

Because Project-based learning works best when students have some choices about what work they will be doing and why, it’s useful to give them some task options to choose from. Below are several tasks that University of Michigan students in Sweetland’s Minor in Writing choose from while they work on their Capstone Project, a semester-long research project of their choosing.

1. Blog Post

Initiate a topic of discussion for our course that’s relevant to your project’s problem. (200-500 words accompanied by something multimodal (ie, photo, screenshot, hyperlink, audio, video).

2. Annotated Bibliography Sets

Document and streamline your research! 3-5 annotations count as a set. Each annotation should include the following:

  • Citation information in MLA, APA, or Chicago form (keep your citation information consistent throughout the course)
  • A brief summary of the source’s topic, genre, and main purpose/argument.
  • A reflection on what interests you about this source and how it might influence your essay, project, or portfolio

3. Small Group Discussion

Pick a reading you’ve done on your own, concentrate on an issue it raises that would be relevant to either the peer review working group your instructor has placed you in, or a few
relevant students in the course, and email them a brief summary of what you want to discuss. 100-300 word email, with link or file included when relevant.

4. Author Self-Interview at the Beginning of a Project

Conduct the following self-interview on paper or into a digital recorder and then reflect on the moments that most surprise, intrigue, or disturb you.

  • What is your major/minor?
  • What is your work and/or extracurricular background?
  • What is the problem you are interested in working on?
  • What do you know about this problem?
  • What don’t you know about this problem?
  • What unique resources do you have to investigate this problem?

5. Author Self-Interview in the Middle of a Project

Conduct the following self-interview on paper or into a digital recorder and then reflect on the moments that most surprise, intrigue, or disturb you.

  • What did I want to discover at the beginning of my project?
  • What is the most important project decision I’ve made and why?
  • What is the most important research I’ve done so far and why?
  • How has the research I’ve done affected my response to the problem?
  • How does the research I’ve done affect my initial project decisions about genre, audience, and purpose?
  • What’s the thing that’s working best about my project? Is there a way I can highlight that even more?
  • What do I think needs to be changed, deleted, or added? Why?
  • How would I fill in the blanks to the following sentence?: “I am researching ____________________________ because I want to understand_________________ in order to help my audience ___________________________understand ________________________."

6. Do Another Writer’s Research

Find a source you think would be perfect for another student’s project. Email them a 200- 300 word message that

  • introduces the source
  • summarizes what you know about the student’s project
  • explains why you think this source would be useful for their project

7. Mapping

Create an annotated map of a place relevant to your research to help us understand your problem.

8. An Annotated Timeline

Create an annotated timeline that show some of the complexity and patterns of the problem.

9. Out Loud and Unvarnished

Read one of your project drafts out loud into a digital recorder. Allow yourself to digress and discuss the places where you stop or hesitate (for whatever reason, positive or negative). Write a 200-500 word reflection that discusses the digressive moments that most surprise, intrigue or disturb you and how you plan to use those moments to help you revise the draft.

10. Working Lunch

Get a drink, meal, or snack with another course member and discuss your projects. This should be a time to share the good, the bad, and all the ambiguous in between of your project work. Decide on at least one tangible way you want to support each other’s projects and write a collaborative statement formalizing this support plan. 200-400 words.

11. Pitching Your Project

Propose your final project in the form of a pitch to a prospective publisher of your work. Your pitch should consist of a letter (one single-spaced page in 12-point font with one-inch margins) and a sample of the work (around 100 words of text and one image, sketch, audio clip, video clip, or hyperlink). The letter must answer the following questions:

  • Who is the intended audience of the work?
  • What form will the final work take—what genre, and for what specific publication venue? Magazine article (and for what kind of magazine), short story, children’s book,
    etc.?
  • Approximately how long will the final work be?
  • How will the project combine textual and other multimodal elements?
  • Why should the work be published? What are its motive and stakes? Why should
    someone want to read your work? Why now?
  • Why should you write the work, rather than some other writer?