Goals

Be open minded

PeterA thinks it's important to get this right, maybe by providing various ideas about the goals of research and writing. It would be important for the writing not be like that found in a manual: as in "Your goal is to synthesize and analyze multiple sources to learn new information, challenge your own assumptions, and learn how to account for multiple points of view" -- even if that's the sort of thing we want them to do. For many students, without dumbing it down, we need to speak in a language or present ideas in a way that will not cause turn off.

"Telling" only works with those who would be able to follow the manual - what we need is an exercise that can facilitate the following process:

1. Provide a stimulus (or stimuli) that would elicit responses revealing student preconceptions.

2. Provide a/some resource(s) that challenge these preconceptions

3. Prompt students to review criteria

Can't think of one right now - but have had a lot of good stuff happen with this process in the past