Your name:

Marie-Theresa Nelson

Senior Capstone Project

Essential and Research Questions Template
You must complete one template document for each one of your two projects.
We have placed two copies of this template document in your individual Google folder for next year’s Capstone
class. (This folder has already been shared with you.)

DUE: Thursday, September 7, 2017

PROJECT # 1

1. Topic area you wish to explore for this Capstone project:

Foster Care System

2. List assorted questions that you can generate about your topic (feel free to enlarge the box
below if you need more space). You want to create a long list here; if you only have a few
questions, you won’t have much to work with in this exercise.

- What determines if a person/family can foster a child?

- What is the maximum time that a child can be in foster care?
- What are some underlying trends with the children who end up in foster care and the people
that end up fostering them?
- How does the government determine if a child should go into a foster home or a
group/institutional home?
- Why does media mostly make the foster care system out to be flawed and a failure for most
children?
- How does the foster care system and the government protect those children that are in
unfortunate situations but still with their biological family?
- What is the limit for the amount of homes that a child can go through?
- What is the maximum amount of children a family can foster?
- What support is available for foster parents and how does this help get delivered?
- What protocol is taken when it is determined that a family fostering a child is not doing it for
the right reasons?
- What are the outcomes of most foster care situations?

3. Revisit and evaluate the questions you placed in the box above.
· color those questions that have significant potential to be an overarching “big” question—those
questions that could lead to other rich, thought provoking questions: GREEN
· color the questions that have some potential/possibilities and would need to be researched in order to
answer the “big” question: BLUE
· color the questions that are too simple/dead end: RED

4. Now consider this definition of an essential question:

An essential question is: the overarching question that

addresses a problem, need, or challenge you have identified
through your preliminary research.
Here are several examples of good essential questions, taken from last year’s Senior Capstone projects:

How does educational equity, accessibility, opportunity, and freedom to choose one’s own path
enable a female student to be successful?

How are veterans and their families of recent U.S wars affected by government-allocated benefits, or
lack thereof, that are meant to support their transition back into regular life?

During the late 20th century to the present day, how has the experience of black students in public
schools changed?

How may a performing art be used to demonstrate the importance of empathy within a population of
people affected by a significant event?

How do today’s technological innovations in communication affect the ability of young people (ages
14-24) to think and act independently of their parents?

What are the effects of salt marsh destruction and how can steps be taken to prevent destruction as
well as to restore already damaged ecosystems?

5. From the questions you’ve colored, reformulate those questions into several possible questions
about your topic that approach what might be a potential essential question. The likelihood is that
you’ve already identified some within the questions you colored “green.” Place the several possible
essential questions in the box below.

- In what ways does the foster system do the complete opposite of what it is supposed to do to
help children who are born into unfortunate biological situations?
- What are the effects of the foster care system on children who have already suffered great
emotional instability?
 - How does the government determine if a family can foster a child and what decisions are made
by the child themselves?

6. Now refine your questions in the box above into a single essential question that you think might
work for your project. Put that question in the box below.

How has the foster care system helped but also worsened the situation of children who are in need of
families to care for the?

7. Now, evaluate your proposed essential question according to the following criteria:

Does your essential question meet the following criteria?

Your essential question is open-ended; that is, it typically will not have a single, final, and correct
answer. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion and
debate. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question calls for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, prediction.
It cannot be effectively answered by recall alone. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question points toward important, transferable ideas within (and sometimes across)
disciplines. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question requires support and justification, not just an answer. ✓ Yes ☐ No
Your essential question recurs over time; that is, the question can and should be revisited again and
again. ✓ Yes ☐ No

8. Based on the above assessment, do you have any revisions to your question? If yes, revise it in
the box below. If no, then copy the question you identified in question #6 with into the box below.

How has the foster care system helped but also worsened the situation of children who are in need of
families to care for them?

9. Now that you have crafted an essential question, answer the following:
(a) Why are you pursuing this essential question?
Because I want to find out who/what/when/where/whether/why/how to:

I have worked with children who were in the foster care system and i heard their traumatic stories. I
feel as though the foster care system should be helping children and not making their lives worse. There
is this idea that the system helps and that is not always true. I want to know why it isn’t true and I want
other people to know as well so that they are not left in the dark.

(b) So why do I want to do that?

In order to:
i. help my audience understand how/why/whether

- how the foster care system actually works (determining the people to foster the children,
determine if a child should be in the system, what benefits are provided for families)
- why the foster care system doesn’t always help and why the media usually portrays it
negatively
- Whether the foster care system actually helps children or hurts them

ii. make change in this direction:

- to a system that children’s lives are made better by the foster care system
- every person who fosters a child is in it for the right reasons and not any awards that are given

iii. to call attention to these things:

- children go through a lot of trauma

- people foster children for the wrong reasons and the government doesn’t realize it

iv. because it’s relevant to this aspect of today’s world, to the daily lives of individuals, to the future of
the planet because…:

- we all know at least one person who has been in the foster care system
- people lose their families everyday and need someone to take over for them
- we can all one day foster a child that needs helps
10. Now consider this definition of a research question:

A research question(s) addresses what are you going to

investigate in order to address/answer pieces of your essential
question, to add to existing research, and in order to find
solutions to the essential question.
There will be primary research questions—big, multi-directional, meaty questions that
generate an array of subsidiary—aka secondary—research questions that are smaller. They
each require research in order to answer primary research question. Not only do you have
to frame your primary research question within the larger essential question framework but
your secondary research questions have to support your primary research question.

Your primary research question will address what you are actually going to do in your
project. It’s a narrowing of your essential question. You need your essential question to
frame what it is you are bothering to take on this project--it’s the big question that your
project contributes to answering. But your primary research question ultimately drives your
day-to-day work on your project.

Let’s take a look at some examples from the 2014-2015 Senior Capstone class. We’ll give you the
essential question and then the primary research question for a number of projects so that you can see how
the primary research question worked within the parameters of the essential question.

Essential Question:
How does educational equity, accessibility, opportunity, and freedom to choose one’s own path
enable a female student to be successful?

Primary Research Question:

How do female students from impoverished backgrounds benefit from attending all-female,
secondary public schools in Sri Lanka, Rwanda, and the United States?

Essential Question:
How are veterans and their families of recent U.S wars affected by government-allocated benefits, or
lack thereof, that are meant to support their transition back into regular life?

Primary Research Question:

How have Massachusetts veterans of recent U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan been affected by the
government-allocated benefits, leading to their current situations?
 Essential Question:
During the late 20th century to the present day, how has the experience of black students in public
schools changed?

Primary Research Question:

During the late 20th century to the present, how has the experience of black students at the nation’s
oldest public school—Boston Latin School—changed?

Essential Question:
How may a performing art be used to demonstrate the importance of empathy within a population of
people affected by a significant event?

Primary Research Question:

How can an allegorical play be used to depict the experiences of and effects on a population of people
impacted by a significant fictional event (based upon significant historical events) and what can an
audience come to understand about the importance of empathy after viewing the play?

Essential Question:
How do today’s technological innovations in communication affect the ability of young people (ages
14-24) to think and act independently of their parents?

Primary Research Question:

How does communication via cell phone affect the ability of young people (ages 14-24) to think and
act independently of their parents?

Essential Question:
What are the effects of salt marsh destruction and how can steps be taken to prevent destruction as
well as to restore already damaged ecosystems?

Primary Research Question:

How does salt marsh destruction impact the environment, economy, and society and what can be
done to restore the ecosystem, prevent future destruction, and educate the public on the importance
of this issue?

10A: Please repeat your essential question from question #8:

How has the foster care system helped but also worsened the situation of children who are in need of
families to care of them?

11. Now that you’ve looked at the above examples, take a look at your essential question, with the
project you intend to produce in mind. Try formulating a primary research question that falls
within your essential question but has a greater degree of specificity that relates to the project you
have in mind.

How has the foster care system in Massachusetts affected children who are in need of families to be
with?

12. Now try making a list of possible secondary questions, questions that you will need to answer in
order to fully answer the primary research question. You should have a list of several of these
secondary questions. It will be helpful to go back to box #2. Look at the patterns in how you
ranked/colored your questions. See if any of these can be reformed to constitute secondary
questions.

- What services are provided for children in the foster care system in MA, besides a place to
live?
- How does the government determine what people can foster a child?
- When is it necessary for a child to be put in foster care?
- On average, how long to children spend in foster care? Is there a maximum amount of time?
- Are families required to report every detail about the child they are fostering?
- How are complaints filed on behalf of the child or the family?
- Does the child’s personal preference have an effect on the placement of the child?

13. This is what I anticipate I will produce as a final project in response to my essential and
primary research questions.
Please provide a paragraph-length description with sufficient detail as to the scope of and form that
you think your project will take.

I believe that once I answer my essential and primary research question, I will have learned a lot more
about the foster care system and others will know more as well. My project will expose the flawed
foster care system that had failed many children only looking for help. It will give examples as to how
the system fails, but it will also show that the system is not a complete waste. It helps some children get
out of bad situations. My project will focus more on the downsides and how to potentially fix them
because media continually portrays the foster care system to not be helpful in the rehabilitation of a
traumatized child.

Now that you have completed this document for one of your projects, please be sure to complete the same
document for your other proposed project.

And remember: when you have completed both AND have read the book As We Speak, please be sure to
create the two short videos on each of your projects and upload this to our YouTube channel.

All of this is due on Thursday, September 7, 2017.