Topic: Research Paper

Title: “Writing for Real People: A Client-Centered Approach.” JC Cooper. College Composition and Communication (October 1993), 386-388. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: Author wrote to people in a variety of professions and jobs asking them for suggested topics in their fields for research papers. If students used one of the topics, she sent them a copy of the research paper.

“One local family asked for information on von-Hippel-Lindau disease after a son had been diagnosed as suffering from it. The student who completed this project managed to find material, much of it unpublished, not available to local doctors…. A local manufacturer of playground equipment asked for a paper on playground equipment in other countries. A retirement home requested a paper on property tax exemptions for charitable institutions.”

Comment: Sounds good if the topics are “researchable,” i.e., materials, people, etc. are available to the students. Since information on almost every topic can be found on the Internet, this problem should not be hard to deal with. The advantage is that the topics are likely to be real problems for the person in the profession and the researcher. RayS.

The purpose of this blog is to summarize articles on teaching English/language arts, from kindergarten through college, published in English education journals from the past.