A RUBRIC FOR THE WRITTEN PROJECT
Writer Candidate: 1st. Review R1: 2nd. Review R2: CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
| A. Statement Of The Research Question - Your paper will be built around a question that has the potential to help you become a more effective writer for readers with diverse needs and backgrounds. Framing the question appropriately is the foundation for a useful and interesting paper. | - | - |
| Scope and Focus of the Question: | R1 | R2 |
| Question allows exploration of issues and provides manageable focus for this paper | 5 | 5 |
| Question allows for exploration OR provides focus but not both | 3 | 3 |
| Question neither allows for exploration nor provides focus | 1 | 1 |
| Relevance/Importance of the Question: | R1 | R2 |
| ( )The question directly relate to student's
interest. ( )Answering the question has the potential for helping you become a more effective learner. ( )The answer to the question matters in community building. |
5 | 5 |
| The answer to the question is unlikely to significantly inform your own interest. | 3 | 3 |
| Either the question is ( )not related to your
interest and/or it ( )insufficiently addresses the needs of the community you want to build. |
1 | 1 |
| B. Rationale - Papers of the type you will be writing generally begin with a rationale or explanation about why the topic is important and worth researching. It provides a literature base, as opposed to a critique of the research, for exploring the question, The rationale foreshadows the larger research literature critique. In the rationale, you define your terms (not everyone defines "experiential", or "developmental", or "reluctant reader", or "community" as you do), and state the limitations you are placing on your research. | - | - |
| Rationale | R1 | R2 |
| The rationale provides all of the
following: ( )a succinct explanation of the importance of the problem to you, ( )a discussion and balanced overview (not skewed towards one point of view) of the importance of the question to the learning community, ( )a discussion based on information available in the professional literature, referenced with specific citations in APA form, ( )a description of existing controversies or conflicts that your paper will need to address, ( )clear definition of terms |
5 | 5 |
| The rationale provides only the following:
( )an explanation of the personal relevance of the problem, ( )a discussion of the relevance to the learning community based on your opinion, not the professional literature, ( )general references to the literature but with few specific APA citations, ( )a partially developed description of existing controversies and conflicts or a skewed presentation of the current status of the problem, ( )an incomplete or uneven balance between personal opinion and a literature-based discussion of the importance of the problem to the learning community, ( )definition of terms and statement of limits |
3 | 3 |
| The rationale is ( )based almost exclusively on personal opinion with ( )little or no reference to the literature and to existing conflicts and controversies. ( )Definitions of terms are not provided. |
1 | 1 |
CHAPTER II: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
| Educational research doesn't just happen. Compelling questions arise from particular social, cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts. The section of historical research will explore the historical background for the question you have chosen. How far back the history goes depends on your question. | - | - |
| The chapter on historical background: | R1 | R2 |
| ( )is specific to your question ( )provides a discussion, based on information in the professional literature, which specifies particular, significant historical bases for your question; elaborates the social, cultural, and/or political contexts related to your question; and connects these historical bases and contexts to each other ( )traces the evolution, in the literature, of the thinking about your problem ( )uses correct APA citations for reference purposes ( )is clearly connected to the foreshadowing provided in your rationale |
5 | 5 |
| ( )is partially or tangentially connected to
your problem OR is too broad ( )summarizes individual historical events but does not link the events, discuss the implications, or provide clear connections to social and cultural contexts ( )provides insufficient tracing of the evolution of the thinking in the literature about the problem OR insufficiently develops the historical, cultural, and social contexts of the problem ( )uses correct APA citations for some, but not all, references ( )is tenuously connected to the foreshadowing provided in the rationale |
3 | 3 |
| ( )has few clear connections to your problem
( )states discrete events but does not provide a discussion of significance or connections ( )does not trace the evolution in the literature of the thinking about your problem ( )incorrectly uses APA citations or does not specifically cite references from professional literature ( )has little or no connection to the rationale |
1 | 1 |
| If, for example, you were interested in exploring the effects of sex education and in-school health clinics on high school students' academic achievement, you would trace the history of schools as social service providers. In your discussion, you would explore why schools came to be viewed as providers of social services (social, economic contexts), the various ways in which schools have provided social services, the historical effects of having schools provide social services, the political responses over time to this issue and the reasons why this issue is surfacing today. Another example - if you have an interest in experiential education, you would need to try to find the forerunners. Pestalozzi, Montessori, Foxfire, Dewey, Freire, Summerhill, early BIA schools -an exploration of these educators and programs might provide useful information in understanding the current issues related to experiential education. |
CHAPTER III: INTEGRATIVE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
| This section is the heart of your paper.
Generally,
integrative reviews of the literature critically review and summarize
recent
research related to a specific topic or question. Your goal in this
chapter
is to present the current state of knowledge concerning your question,
including any important issues/controversies that the research has left
unresolved. Essential to this chapter is the critical review and
analysis of the research that you have found. As you are writing this section, you are tracking, comparing, and contrasting major arguments AND analyzing whether the research used to support the argument is sufficient. The best way to get a sense of what such an integrative review of the literature might look like is by example. We urge you to review previous research papers. |
- | - |
| Literature Review | R1 | R2 |
| The integrative review of the literature
provides all of the following: ( )A description and categorization of the major points of views or "schools of thought" on your topic/question, as revealed in your search of the professional literature. ( )A critical review of professional opinions or theories about the topic, usually based on a professional's experience with a range of programs/strategies, but not necessarily tied directly to an empirical study. In this instances, you will be analyzing whether the author's thesis is adequately supported by his/her arguments and examples. ( )A critical review and analysis of at least 10 empirically based studies --both qualitative and quantitative studies are acceptable -- directly related to your research question. The research methods used, the sample studied, and your critical assessment of the reliability, validity and generalizability of the studies to your topic. ( )An analysis and thoughtful discussion presenting your analysis of the current state of knowledge on your question, based on information available in the professional literature, referenced with specific citations in APA form. |
5 | 5 |
| The integrative review provides only the
following: ( )a discussion of some points of view or "schools of thought" about your question but with few specific APA citations from the professional literature to support your discussion, ( )fewer than ten empirically-based studies included in your review, ( )a descriptive summary of specific studies and/or strategies but with little or no critical assessment of their strengths or weaknesses, ( )an incomplete discussion of what the research and professional literature reveal about your question/topic. |
3 | 3 |
| The material in this section is
( )based almost exclusively on personal opinion or on professional's opinions ( )with few or no citations or references to research. ( )OR the review includes lists of suggestions/strategies drawn from the literature ( )with little or no critical assessment of the research upon which these recommendations are based. |
1 | 1 |
CHAPTER IV - CONCLUSIONS
| This final section is your opportunity to go
back to your original question/topic. Relate some of what you have
found in the current
literature to the historical background of the question that you
described
in Chapter II, Depending upon your question and the findings from the
research
literature, you may make recommendations for community building, based
on
the critical review that you presented in the previous chapter. If the literature that you reviewed showed inadequate/poorly designed studies, you may recommend caution and/or avoidance of specific practices. If the professional research community seems divided on which are most effective community building strategies, this is the place to identify the strengths and weaknesses -- based on your review of the research -- of those strategies you are recommending. If you found studies that pertained to only some aspects of your question, this is the place to discuss those unanswered questions that you believe future research still needs to address in order to determine "best practice for community building". |
- | - |
| The conclusions provide all of the following: | R1 | R2 |
| ( )a clear discussion of how the findings in
the current research relate to the historical background of your
original question, ( )recommendations for community building strategies that are clearly linked to the research on "best practice" that you have identified in your previous chapter and/or, ( )cautions/avoidance of specific practices, with correct APA citations, ( )identification of aspects of your question/topic that are still unanswered or unclear in the research, and that suggest areas for future research. |
5 | 5 |
| The conclusion provides only the following:
( )a partially developed discussion of how the findings in the research relate to the historical background of your original question, ( )presentation of the implications of current research for the classroom practices you recommend, but without the support of a critical review of the literature, ( )an incomplete or uneven balance between personal opinion and a literature-based discussion of recommended community building strategies, ( )a missing or incomplete discussion of aspects of your question/topic that are still unanswered or unclear in the research and that suggests a need for future research. |
3 | 3 |
| ( )The conclusions are based almost
exclusively on personal opinion with ( )little or no reference to the literature or to existing conflicts and controversies revealed in your review of research on the topic. ( )Unanswered questions and need for future research not identified. |
1 | 1 |