Rethink and Research and annotated bibliography

  For the “Rethink and Research” Project, you will revisit an earlier essay you wrote in this class (Essay 1 – 3) and rethink the argument you made in that essay by doing research on what other authors have said about your topic. Inspired by your research, you will take a different position than the position you took in your previous essay and represent your new argument in a form other than the academic essay. For instance, you may create a public service announcement, a video presentation, a song, a podcast, a prototype of a product, a sculpture or other material artifact, a visual art image, etc. You will also be required to submit an annotated bibliography along with your final product. The “final product” refers to the project itself. In addition to the final product, you will submit a 1-2 paragraph written explanation of how your project rethinks/takes a different position or approach to your topic than your previous essay. You will also be required to give yourself a letter grade for the project and write a one-paragraph justification for how you determined your grade. I will take your self-evaluation into strong consideration. The annotated bibliography must include 3 sources that come from scholarly, peer-reviewed academic journals or intellectually-robust popular magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Salon, the New Republic, Wired, Spin, Details, the Pacific Standard, etc. We will spend some time in class going over how to write annotations for your bibliographic entries and where to find scholarly, peer-reviewed academic sources. Annotated Bibliography Info For your annotated bibliography follow MLA style for a Works Cited Page/Annotation. You should have three credible sources. You need to summarize all sources. For two of the three sources you need to also either asses, or reflect after your summary. You will be given decent chunks of class time to work on this project and ask questions. There is a possibility you can use “Letter from Birmingham Jail” for this project as well. We will discuss this further.. Approaches you might consider to “rethink” your original argument: 1. Mix-and-Match/Find-and-Replace Choose two other authors in our reading sequence to answer the original assignment question. Or, if you want to get really creative, replace one of the authors you worked with previously with a reading/installation/project/musical composition from outside of the course. The goal of this approach is to put your argument or an author you previously worked with into conversation with a different text or writer. 2. Reframe Your Original Argument Use a new theory or concept to “reframe” your original argument. That is, you re-examine your argument using terms and ideas from the new theory or concept. This new theory or concept is the new frame or lens through which you will look at your original argument with fresh eyes. The goal of this approach is to change how you understand your original argument by viewing it through this new frame. 3. Apply Your Original Argument to a New Case This approach is something like the opposite of the previous approach. Instead of using a new frame to rethink your original argument, take your original argument, use it as a theory, and apply it to a new case. How would your argument change if you applied it to a new time, place, or cultural context? Can you think of an outlier case that really tests the validity of your original argument? 4. Take the Counter-Argument Most boring, but it will do. 5. Any other rationally-sound, rigorous, thoughtful, and meaningful approach you can think of.