Reading as a Researcher
Activity 1: following the steps of a research project
(illustrated with
Koza)
In the assignments that ask
students to use the reading as a spring board into their own similar research
project, students have to understand
-
how the
researcher worked
-
what steps
of the process might be assumed or omitted from the final article
-
where they
may have to take a different path than in the reading
Thus,
in-class discussions usually work with both the reading and the
assignment built on that reading to help students follow and/or create the steps
of a research project. This class activity is a fairly straight-forward
whole-class discussion aimed at generating the steps in Koza's project. We
provide a set of teaching notes, including a
chart of steps we would expect students to
identify (or that we would help them elicit) with key passages of the text and
questions we might ask students to consider during the discussion.
Teacher's lesson plan notes:
Following the Research Steps
word version of lesson plan to
download
Reading Koza's "Rap Music: The Cultural Politics of Official
Representation" as a Researcher: Following the steps of a research project
Reading done in preparation:
-
Julia Koza’s “Rap Music:
The Cultural Politics of Official Representation”
-
the assignment (Koza is
the starting point for assignment 2 in Cultural Politics and Public
Discourse and assignment 2 in Reading Media)
-
Students will probably have read and discussed the introductory section,
at least, of Chapter 6: Working with Texts so that the terms of close
reading, textual analysis and content analysis will have already been
considered
Class Discussion/activity:
Objective: have students understand the process Koza
followed in conducting her research, so that they can approximate a
similar study with a different topic. Since researchers rarely give
their process in sequence or completely, readers have to piece the
process together from what is said, what is implied and what they can
guess.
Task: class creates a list of Koza’s
steps on the board
Time:
one class session
Next step/ homework: apply similar
questions to their own project. For example:
Given the topic you’ve decided to investigate, which magazines (or other
publications) will you include in your study? for how many years? what
key terms will you have to use to find relevant articles? which
databases will you consult? what type of secondary sources do you expect
to consult?
Note: in a class with computer access,
some time might be spent having students actually experiment with locating
the appropriate key terms, generating a list of publications with the most
“hits” and determining a reasonable time span. Or, teachers might have
students work in teams to generate this kind of information with sample
topics.
Below is a list of steps, some key passages of Koza’s text that we would
expect students to turn to or cite as evidence of this process or that we
would take them to if they had difficulty, and some discussion questions to
prompt thinking.
We’re sure that there will be some disagreement among your
students, as there always is among ours, about the answers to these
questions. The real point is to help students to see how many decisions (and
how much work) are hiding behind such a simple, straight-forward description
of method.
|
Steps |
Passages |
Questions |
|
1.
located all the rap-related articles in three magazines
2.
read these closely |
the third paragraph of
the introduction: “I did a close reading of all rap-related articles
that appeared in three American weekly news magazines during the
ten-year period from January 1983 through December 1992; the three
magazines I examined were Newsweek, Time magazine, and
U.S. News and World Report.” |
1.
How would Koza have decided on which magazines to examine?
What justifications would she likely have for choosing these and not
others?
2.
How would she have found “all” the rap-related articles?
3.
How do you suppose she decided on this time span? Does it
seem reasonable to do ten years? these ten years? why or why not?
|
|
1.
determined appropriate magazines based on readership numbers
and purpose of study – information not entertainment
2.
used reader’s guide to determine key terms and locate
relevant articles
3.
determined an appropriate time span (perhaps as a result of
#4)
4.
charted patterns of treatment of topic – numbers
5.
closely read and analyzed articles |
See more detailed
discussion of the selection process in the section “Selecting the
General Media Sources” |
1.
What’s involved in a “close reading”
2.
How did she know which patterns might be important for her
purposes?
|
|
1.
determine research questions that can be answered by a
content analysis of media
2.
determine appropriate magazines and time frame for study
3.
find relevant articles using appropriate data base and key
terms
4.
chart patterns of treatment of topic
5.
read through articles noting patterns of placement, language,
construction of key elements (like performers, audience), associated
images and symbolism
6.
consult secondary sources, theorists and other research for
support of interpretations
7.
write final version of analysis to present findings |
see discussion of “close
reading” in Chapter 6
note Koza’s use of
secondary sources and the frame that establishes her initial
concerns/purposes for the investigation |
|
See other resources for Teaching Reading
 
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