Now that the Literacy Narrative assignment is behind us, we can shift our focus completely to the Research Project. By this point, you should have received final approval on your Research Proposal in Google Docs. If you do not see the word “APPROVED” in a comment from me at the top of your proposal, please revise the document and email me as soon as possible. Once you have received my approval, you are ready to finalize your list of eight sources for the Annotated Bibliography and to begin collecting data.

I will be at a professional conference next week, which means that you will have the entire week to focus on your research project. Here’s the plan for each day:

• On Tuesday, you will receive some training from one of the librarians at the Scarborough-Phillips Library. Please meet for class at the library, not in our regular classroom. (Look for Sam at the entrance to the library; she will give you directions to the 2nd floor computer lab.) Also, please remember that Tuesday is the deadline for turning in your notes from the Interview a Professor assignment, so please make sure you give these to Sam.
• On Thursday, we will not meet as a class, so our class time would make an ideal time to meet with interview subjects, conduct surveys, or get one-on-one help from a librarian. By Thursday you should know how best to use your time to make progress on your research project, so I’ll leave it up to each of you to make this a productive day.

Next week, I will post another update with more details about Week 8, but here’s a preview: When I see you again (on Tuesday, October 18), you should have a complete draft of your Annotated Bibliography (all eight entries), and you should be ready to discuss the article we didn’t get to last time: “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively,” by Margaret Kantz (WAW, pp. 67–85).

Finally, if you need anything while I’m gone, you can talk to Sam or you can email me. (I’ll be attending conference sessions, but I’ll respond as quickly as I can.)