Write a first-person, chronologically organized account of your thinking process as you explore possible solutions to a question or problem related to the issues and themes presented in your text.
Begin by describing what the question is, how and why you became interested in it, and why it is problematic for you (that is, why you can’t answer it). Then, as you contemplate the problem and do research, narrate the evolving process of your thinking.
Include three kinds of information for your reader:
1. External details of your search (brainstorming, conversations, trips to the library, methods for finding sources – the narrative “story” of your search);
2. Summaries of the new arguments/ information you recovered along the way (summaries of arguments you read from the scholarly literature, new information from interviews, etc.), and
3. Your own internal mental wrestling to make sense of new material (what you were thinking about, how your ideas were evolving – reformulating the problem, changing your mind, experiencing confusion versus the “aha!” moments).
For this essay, it doesn’t matter whether you reach a final position or solve the problem; your reader is interested in your process, not your final product. Make your exploratory essay an interesting intellectual
detective story – something your readers will enjoy. Minimum six pages and two secondary sources
Will also need to create a “one pager” info. sheet to summarize your findings for the class
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