Please read very carefully the attached instructions

Purpose: While many students generally associate the word “research” with finding expert sources to use in school papers, writing a research paper is not the only time in which we research. Given our ability to post, read, and view information online, research in the 21st century is a much broader, more fluid process that we can use whenever we want to learn something new or understand something better. We research to help us make large decisions such as what colleges to apply to and smaller decisions such as whether or not a new Netflix special is worth watching. Put simply, anytime we look up what others have said, written, or posted about a certain topic, we are conducting research, and we use this research to help us make decisions in our own lives.
What makes research so common today is that most of us have 24/7 access to the Internet. As a result, the number of conversations taking place on the web is increasing exponentially every day, and anyone who can post to a site or upload a video might be viewed as an expert to untrained readers. This makes information literacy (the ability to critically evaluate and ethically use information) an indispensable skill for 21st century adults.
In this module, we will learn how our digital landscape impacts the concept of research by analyzing the specific context and modes in which important conversations take place. Different people with varying levels of expertise, with varying motivations, participate in conversations together online–and they often use different genres and mediums to do so. When we do any kind of research, we enter into these conversations. This project is meant to help you understand how different stakeholders might enter into a conversation about an important topic in different ways, and with different degrees of bias and advocacy. Thus, we will also practice assessing the reliability of the information that is now at our fingertips.
By the end of this module, the hope is that you will have a broader notion of what constitutes research and you will feel more confident conducting and consuming research in our 1102 class and in other parts of your life as well.
Task: Your task is to follow a conversation in society right now to which social movements and influential organizations are responding. “Following a conversation” means examining how different writers define and respond to similar issues, and listening/reading closely for moments where different writers connect, where they overlap, and where they conflict. It also means that you examine how different writers enter the conversation (which will require rhetorical analysis) and how those differences impact what they are trying to say.
In order to make sure that your exploration considers differing points of view, we are going to ground your exploration in this unit by focusing on a social movement or an influential organization and an issue that is central to their cause. For example, you could look into conversations related to social movements like #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, March for Our Lives, or #MMIW. You could look at conversations in the news that involve influential organizations, like Planned Parenthood, the Red Cross, the ACLU, and RAICES. The project will ask you to read several sources about a topic that that group cares very much about, think about how different writers take different approaches to the topic, and then look at how the major organization or social movement you chose is responding to that same topic.
The project will ask you to do four things:
1. Summarize the specifics of the conversations that you are following, including the main topics/ideas being discussed, the modes being used throughout the conversation, and the context in which the conversation is taking place.
2. Discuss the ethos/credibility and varying levels of expertise of groups/people taking part in the conversation,
3. Analyze the ways in which your chosen social movement or organization uses writing and rhetoric to facilitate change
4. Reflect on what you learned, including how this activity informs your understanding of research in a digital society.
Importantly, this assignment is not a paper: you will complete this project as a series of 4 posts, culminating in a final project reflection. All 5 of these assignments will be collected into one project grade.
Note: while each of these assignments might seem “small” on their own, and will appear separately in the modules, together they make up a paper/project grade and will significantly impact your grade. Therefore it is important that for each post you work to find the best sources you can find, and that you answer the questions on each assignment thoroughly. Also, please edit and revise your posts to the best of your ability, as the quality of your writing will also be graded.
Each post will ask you to look for a different kind of text, each one centered around a social movement, and then the post instructions will give you specific questions to answer. All of the posts ask you to make specific references to the text you are analyzing. Please do not talk in broad terms about the topic, but pay close attention to the specific text you’ve chosen to analyze for each post and HOW that text engages in the conversation you have chosen.
For example, a student who chooses to follow the conversation related to March For Our Lives might engage with the following types of texts…
Post #1: Opinion/Persuasive Source Post #2: Informational text Post #3: Interactive text Post #4: Communication of movement/group
NYT opinion piece: “Moved and Inspired by the ‘March for our Lives’” (Links to an external site.)
Times article: “The March for our Lives Protest is this Saturday. Here’s Everything to Know.” (Links to an external site.)
March For Our Lives Facebook page (Links to an external site.)
March for Our Lives YouTube page (Links to an external site.)

Grading Criteria
• Posts #1-4 will be worth 15% each = together they will make up 60% of the project grade.
• Final project reflection is worth 40% of the project grade.
More specific grading criteria–a rubric–for each post will be listed at the bottom of that post.

Here is a link to some example posts with annotations from the teacher explaining what the student did well.

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THINGS TO DO FOR THIS PROJECT:
Note: each of the following assignments (#1-5) will appear as separate assignments in the module. For each post, I will give you more information, including a rubric. However, here is a summary of the posts, in case you want to look ahead.
1. Post #1: Find an opinion or persuasive source that is relevant to/about your movement or organization. A good place to start could be the Op-Ed section of a newspaper. For example, if you go to the NYTimes or the Washington Post website, you can search the opinion section for a particular topic–but you do not have to use an Op-Ed. Once you’ve identified an article to work with, read the article/text and write a rhetorical summary. A rhetorical summary is a summary of the rhetorical situation of a text and the author’s rhetorical choices. Your rhetorical summary should be at least 250 words. See Guiding Questions for Researching Rhetorically for ideas that you might discuss in this post.
2. Post #2: Choose an informational text that is relevant to/about your movement or organization and in conversation with your first text. Examples of informational sources include a news article, an informational webpage, or an informational book. (Importantly, try to pick a source that isn’t just very broadly about the same general topic as the one you used for the last discussion, but one that provides information about the same question or concern that your previous source debated.) As you did for Post #1, write a rhetorical summary for this source. As previously explained, a rhetorical summary is a summary of the rhetorical situation of a text and the author’s rhetorical choices. Your rhetorical summary should be at least 250 words. See Guiding Questions for Researching Rhetorically for ideas that you might discuss in this post. Note: Since you now have worked with 2 different sources, you can respond to the final guiding question as well as the others.
3. Post #3: Next, find a text in conversation with your first two that that allows for reader/viewer interaction via feedback, online comments, etc. You can be creative here. For example, you could look at a blog, a series of tweets, Facebook/Instagram posts, a podcast, online videos (YouTube), interviews, artwork, ads, etc. as long as the text provides space for interaction (or comments) from readers/viewers. This text (or series of texts) should be in conversation with the first two texts. As you did for Posts #1 and #2, write a rhetorical summary of this text. As previously explained, a rhetorical summary is a summary of the rhetorical situation of a text and the author’s rhetorical choices. Your rhetorical summary should be at least 250 words. See Guiding Questions for Researching Rhetorically for ideas that you might discuss in this post. Note: Since you now have worked with 3 different sources, you can respond to the final guiding question as well as the others.
4. Post #4: Investigate how the movement or group communicates its own message. For example, depending on whether you chose a social movement or influential organization, you could look at their protest methods (traffic blocks, die ins, etc), their social media pages, flyers, websites, videos, speeches, etc. Find a “text” (loosely conceived) that enters the same conversation as the previous 3 texts. As you did for the previous posts, write a rhetorical summary of this text. As already explained, a rhetorical summary is a summary of the rhetorical situation of a text and the author’s rhetorical choices. Your rhetorical summary should be at least 250 words. See Guiding Questions for Researching Rhetorically for ideas that you might discuss in this post. Note: Since you now have worked with 4 different sources, you can respond to the final guiding question as well as the others.
5. Researching Rhetorically project reflection: In at least 500 words, look back at your four posts and reflect on your findings. In addition to reflecting on your findings, your reflection should discuss the ways in which this activity informed your understanding of research in the 21st century. The following questions are designed to help you think about what you can discuss in this reflection:
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 What were you curious about when you looked at this organization/movement and the texts they create and the texts about them? What interests you? What did you want to investigate? In your opinion, why should people care about this issue?
 Look at the conversation as a whole. What background information do readers need in order to follow the conversation you are writing about? What are the various viewpoints in this conversation? On what points do your sources generally agree or disagree?
 What do you now understand about the larger conversation surrounding this topic as a result of listening to various voices and perspectives?
 Reflect on your experience conducting research in this way. What did you learn about the way research takes place in a 21st century context? How does this expand upon, change, and/or complicate your previous notions of research? What questions do you have about future research you may have to do, in college or after?
 Based on this activity, what do you think it means to be an active and informed listener when it comes to understanding a topic and forming your opinion on that topic?

Guiding Questions for Researching Rhetorically Posts
• First, identify the author (first name and last name) and title of the piece and where/when it was published. Then identify the core idea of the author’s argument, along with information on what they’re arguing and how they’re making their argument. (If it’s an informative piece, identify what the main goal of the document is and what they are using to support that goal. For example, what are they trying to explain? Why? How?) Your summary should remain an objective report of the article/text, without your commentary or opinion of the author’s argument/information.
• Who is the audience for the text and what was the author’s purpose? Remember that the audience cannot be “everyone”. (For example, does the audience belong to a particular age group? To a specific geographical location? A political affiliation? A specific career or degree of knowledge? Look for clues in the text as to whom the writer thinks is reading.) What is the writer responding to? What do you know about the author/place of publication?
• How does the writer use evidence/information? Is the evidence/information reliable? Why or why not?
• What is the level of bias or degree of advocacy in the medium where this article was published? For example, a newspaper or website might believe something very strongly, to the point that they are very selective in the information they share, or they might be trying to be “neutral”. If you look into the newspaper/website/etc, you might get clues. What might you say are the medium’s values? For example, for an article, you might read the Wikipedia page to learn more about the magazine or newspaper in which it is published. For a social media post, you might click on the profile and see if the other posts indicate a bias. For a website, you might look at the “about page” or read other perspectives on this website. Try to understand if this author is advocating a specific position (or is “neutral”) and/or if the place where this source was published advocates a position (or is “neutral”).
• Look at the WAY the author makes the argument. What stylistic choices does the author make? What content choices? What choices regarding images, layout, etc? How do such choices relate to their rhetorical purpose/s? For example, how do their choices help develop their ethos? How do the choices support their argument? How do their choices help them connect with the audience?
• For Posts #2, #3, and #4: What did you learn from this source that you did not know from the previous sources? In what ways does this source build on or contradict the other sources? How does the genre/medium affect the source’s argument?