Watch the source of road rage, and write the summary

Watch the source of road rage, and write the summary.

The Independent Reading Project: Exploring Topics of Interest

Background: Knowing what is going on around you is the first step towards being an informed and responsible member of your community.  One way to do this, and to build on your academic essay writing skills, is to conduct secondary research on a specific issue that matters to you or your community. 

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to “try on” different possible topics of interest to you before you commit to a single topic & subtopic for your semester-long research project. By exploring several different topics early on in the research process, you can help clarify which topics have sufficient and credible information available that you can access for your research, as well as which topics will hold your interest and attention for an extended period of time.

Your task:

1.  Identify three topics relevant to your civic, social justice, or professional interests that you are curious to learn more about. If you already feel fairly confident of the general topic area you are interested in exploring, you can begin by identifying three subtopics within that general topic that you want to explore.

In class, you started the process of brainstorming possible topics/subtopics to research, but if you still need help coming up with ideas you might want to look at the topics lists from one of the following online resources for inspiration:

• Gale Opposing Viewpoints database (you will need to log in you’re your SFSU ID) (http://go.galegroup.com.jpllnet.sfsu.edu/ps/browseCategory?p=OVIC&u=csusf)
• Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/topics/)

2.  Once you have identified three possible topics, find and read at least one recent article (published in the last five years) from a credible news source* that addresses each topic. For example, if your three possible topics are U.S. Immigration Policy, Social Impacts of New Technologies, and Mental Health in College, you will read a recent article that addresses U.S. immigration policy, a recent article that addresses the social impacts of new technologies, and a recent article that addresses mental health in college.

*Suggested credible news sources include, but are not limited to: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC, NPR, Reuters

3. In your individual forum on iLearn, you will create separate posts for each possible topic you are exploring. For each post: state the topic, provide a link to the article you have read, and write an approximately 300-500 word summary and response to the article. In your first paragraph, summarize the key information presented in the article. In your second paragraph, write a thoughtful response to the article and the information contained in it. Here are some possible questions to guide your response:

• Whose perspectives were represented in the article and whose perspectives were missing?
• Where do you stand in all of this – do you have a strong opinion about the information or perspective presented in the article or do you feel conflicted yourself?
• What further questions do you have about the topic that weren’t sufficiently explored in the article?

Tip for success: The process of searching for articles, reading them, accurately summarizing them, and responding in a thoughtful manner takes time. To get the most out of this assignment and for your own mental wellbeing, I do not recommend waiting until the last-minute to read and respond to your articles. If you try to cram this into a single night, it will show in the quality of your summaries and responses and, most importantly, it won’t be useful to you as a tool for making an informed decision about the direction of your research this semester.

Watch the source of road rage, and write the summary

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