Students will develop research strategies for their rhetorical situation, and
then gather information from primary and secondary sources; they will evaluate
the sources for quality, validity, and appropriateness for the rhetorical
situation.
Project One: Plato's Allegory of the Cave
In order to find and evaluate information, we had to conduct research that would appropriately accompany the topic of the paper for project one, which was what we thought was the meaning of education in Plato's Allegory of the Cave. I looked in many places to do so and found the best sources on Google and through the UNM Libraries academic journals. The articles I chose to cite and use in my paper contained information about Plato's view on education in the allegory and peoples' specific opinions about education based on what Plato had to say. I included the articles that I found by quoting directly or paraphrasing the main ideas that were presented.
Project Two: No Child Left Behind
In order to support my opinion about No Child Left Behind, I had to find sources that either supported or contradicted by opinion. The majority of the sources I found supported my thoughts and were easy to include as evidence. The only source that I was hesitant to use was Wikipedia. All throughout school we are told not to trust Wikipedia because it is open for the public to adjust. I, however, thought that it was appropriate to use in my situation because it was only used for the definition of the legislation and no other purpose. The other source that I used that were reliable were: an article from CNN Opinions that gave suggestions about the changes that needed to be made to No Child Left Behind; a paper written by a college student in 2009 that was about the effect that the act has had on standardized testing and the way teachers teach; and a video explaining what No Child Left Behind is and how little people really know about it. I incorporated these sources by including direct quotes and paraphrasing the information that was presented.
Project Three: My Educational Manifesto
For this project, I was required to use two source that were previously given in class and two outside sources to support my arguments in my manifesto. The two sources I chose to use from previously in the class were The Republic by Plato and the video of Bill Clinton's big ideas about education. These sources were used to define education and talk about the impact that No Child Left Behind has had on testing in our school system. The two outside sources that I used were about education helping people earn a higher pay in their future jobs and about standardized testing. After deciding to use these sources, I feel like my arguments are very well backed up and supported. I believe that the research I did made my views that much stronger.