Research PapersMaking the Effort More Than a Game of Trivial Pursuit™

The results of your research should be:

More than just the facts and a summary of other people’s ideas

Based on new ideas and synthesis

“Questions and questioning may be the most powerful technologies of all.”—Jamie McKenzie in Beyond Technology

Essential questions They point to the heart of a subject or

topic, especially its controversies. They generate multiple plausible answers,

perspectives, and research directions-leading to other questions.

They cast old knowledge, ideas, texts in a new light; they make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

Essential questions continued… They lead to discovery and

uncoverage, as opposed to “coverage.”

They engender further and deepening interest in the subject.

They are provocative, enticing, and engagingly framed.

Essential questions are higher-order, in Bloom's

sense: they are always matters of analysis, synthesis, and evaluative judgment. You must “go beyond” the information given.

Answers to essential questions cannot be found. They must be invented.

What you can find are answers to many of the questions that provide background information for your inquiry.

Examples What would life in America be like today if

the the U.S. had not been involved in World Wars I & II?

How might our lives be different if the electoral college were not a significant part of the election process?

How do we learn about American life through fiction?

What is poverty? Who is an American? How have attitudes of the American people

been influenced by cinema over time? Is U.S. history a history of progress?

Student examples Did the lives and writings of the

women in the Beat generation serve as precursors to the feminist movement in the 1970s?

Is the war on drugs possible?

Supporting Questions

Works CitedCiardiello, Angelo. Did you ask a good question today? Alternative

cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 42, 210-219, 1998.

McKenzie, Jamie. Beyond Technology: Questioning, Research, and the Information Literate School. Bellingham, WA: FNO Press, 2000.

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998.

In order for your research paper to be more than a game of Trivial Pursuit™ you must critically and creatively process the information you find.

Use the Big6™ Research Paper Organizer