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Walden, Spring 2016

Assignment One:

Primary Research & Inquiry Planning

Key Vocabulary
Primary Research:
Research that you personally
collect. This could be
collected through means of
observation, surveys,
interviews, and/or
experimentation (Brizee &
Driscoll, 2010).

After having explored the figured world and artifacts within the
BBCs Sherlock, now it is time for you to investigate you own
selected site of observation. This first assignment is the beginning
portion of our extended, semester long inquiry project. As a part of
this project, you will be conducting observations (primary research),
and you will be tentatively planning an area for extended inquiry/
research (secondary research). You will observe, interview, analyze,
chart, and propose an area for extended observation & inquiry. The
result will look more like extended note-taking & planning rather
than a traditional paper.

Figured World:
A large social structure
complete with its own
conventions of appropriate
behavior, manners, and
community-specific discourse
(i.e. ways of communicating/
jargon) (Bartlett & Holland,
2001).
Artifacts:
These are physical items and
emotions/feelings, which are
culturally or socially
significant to specific
characters within a community
of practice. Outside of the
community of practice an
artifact may have a different or
no meaning at all (Bartlett &
Holland, 2001).

Source: Goins Writer

Secondary Research:
This type of research involves
collation, summary, and/or
synthesis of existing research
studies/work; in other words,
you are taking someone elses
primary research and
summarizing, synthesizing,
and integrating their findings
to a particular study/research
work of your own (Baker &
Brizee, 2013).

I. Observe: Write a detailed set of notes that describe significant

events, people, and artifacts. You must select three different
points in time to conduct your observations.
A. Take detailed, explicit notes that can be easily understood by
other readers in the classmyself included. This may mean
you use short hand notes to record your observations, with
the understanding that you will go back and clarify these
notes later. Again, use the Example Observation Notes as a
guide.
B. Conduct 3 separate observations
C. Record the timing of events that transpire throughout the
observations; refer to the Example Observation Notes for a
model.
D. During the observation, use our class activities we completed
in our analysis of Sherlock and the Example Observation
Notes to inform how you take notes on the site. You may
choose to review specific studio response questions so that
you can include this work as a part of your observation.

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II. Interview: After completing your observations, select a person to

interview that has some knowledge or familiarity with your selected
figured world.
A. Conduct at least one interview with someone that has familiarity with
your figured world. If you select a TV show, a good interviewee
would be a fan or a real life counterpart (e.g. If I were interviewing
someone about Sherlock, I could interview an actual detective). This
interview can be recorded as a part of your observation notes; it does
not need to be a completely separate document.
B. Prior to the interview, you need to develop your questions and clear
them with me. There will be a link provided on Moodle for this very
purpose, which will be assigned as part of your homework.
III. Analyze: After completing both your observations and your interview
with at least one person, analyze your data: make note of trends or
patterns that have developed. Also, note rules and conventions for
appropriate behavior as well as instances in which these rules and
conventions have been resisted or subverted (as is the case most of the
time in Sherlock).
A. Write a 250-word summary paragraph of the rules and conventions
for appropriate behavior within the selected figured world. This
summary should include explicit details; for example, within
Sherlock, some of the rules and conventions include: Watson
consistently trying to compensate for Sherlocks lack of sensitivity,
and Sherlock regularly insulting the police while investigating
various crimes.
B. List some ideas/areas of interest that really stood out to you about
your observations. In other words: why this particular area of
interest, what stood out, why does it interest you, what lines of
inquiry might you like to pursue, etc?
IV. Chart: Take the ideas that stood out from what you have observed and
search for reputable sources via Google Scholar, NPR, the UNCC
Library Databases, and/or TED Talks.
a) Use the ideas that stood out and convert them into search
terms
b) Use the above databases to find at least four reputable
sources on your topic
c) List the search term that you tried, and all the necessary
publication information including the active internet link so
that you can return to the source
V. Propose: In 100-200 words, propose an area for research and inquiry
based on what you have observed and the 4 sources you have found.
Explain what you are you are interested in, give a bit of background
information, and state what you intend to research.

Walden, Spring 2016

Formatting Concerns
12 pt, Times New Roman
Font, Single-Spaced,
Saved and Uploaded in a
Microsoft Word Document
Works Cited or Reference
page included with your
interview cited,
observation notes cited,
and 4 secondary sources,
meaning you will have a
total of 6 entries on your
works cited/reference page
Cite your materials in
whatever citation style is
appropriate for your
intended major (IEEE,
MLA, APA, ChicagoTurabian, etc.)

TO FIND SOURCES:
NPR
TED Talks
UNCC Library Databases
Google Scholar

DUE DATES
Workshop Draft Posted to
Moodle Prior to 11PM:
Saturday, 2/13.
Workshop Days in Class:
Monday, 2/15 & Wednesday,
2/17.
Peer Feedback Posted to
Moodle Prior to 11PM:
Saturday, 2/20.
Revised Copy with
Reflection Posted to Moodle
Prior to 11PM: Saturday,
2/27.

Source: Apple Pages

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Walden, Spring 2016

Once you have completed the workshop and revisedits time to REFLECT on
your work
Assignment One Reflection

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The reflection is a separate, letter like, Word Doc that you write
to me after completing your peer workshop and after you have
made revisions to your assignment work. This piece is to help
provide a greater context for me to respond to your work.
What are you particularly proud of in this paper? What would
you rewrite/revise if you had more time? Give explicit textual
examples.
Describe what comments were helpful/not helpful from your peer
responders and explain how you incorporated the feedback or
why you chose not to use some of the feedback. Again, give
explicit textual examples cited from the actual feedback.
Explain how you have gone above and beyond guidelines;
make a case of how you have exceeded the expectations, giving
explicit examples.
What Student Learning Outcomes SLOs (rhetorical
knowledge, critical reading, composing and processes,
knowledge of conventions, and/or critical reflection) did you see
emerge in the second draft of this project? Explain which ones
you see and how these function as examples of rhetorical
knowledge, knowledge of conventions, etcagain use explicit
textual examples. REMEMBER: NOT ALL OF THESE SLOs
MAY BE PRESENT IN THIS PIECE, SO DO NOT USE
THESE AS A LAUNDRY LIST OF QUESTION/ANSWER.
500 Words, 12pt, Times New Roman Font, single-spaced.
Saved and Uploaded in a Microsoft Word Document.