Reading and responding to a pile of research proposals and annotated bibliographies is like trying to decode a Rube Goldberg contraption: locate all the moving parts (topic, working thesis, the current state of research, sources, annotations, citations) and evaluate their effectiveness: Viable topic? Original thesis? Sufficient awareness of current research? Credible sources? Effective annotations? Correctly formatted citations? The wheels spin--and so does my head.
But soon I stumble upon the proposal that can, with a little tweaking, serve as the introduction to the final essay, with a working thesis that makes me think about a familiar literary work in a new way and annotations that reveal the cogs and wheels of the argument ready to be assembled into a smoothly-running machine. For students who know how to wield the proposal-and-bibliography tools, the final paper will practically write itself.
This is why I keep assigning research proposals and annotated bibliographies even though they spark more student complaints than any other type of assignment. In upper-level literature classes, I require a formal proposal and annotated bibliography at least two weeks before the paper draft is due; if nothing else, this assures that students will locate relevant sources before the last minute, and it gives them time to consult further sources I might suggest. In the worst cases, I can guide students away from certain lines of research and toward others, which prevents the student from devoting unnecessary time to a non-starter.
In the best cases (and I saw many of them yesterday!), the proposal and annotated bibliography allow the students to articulate a thesis and begin assembling the parts of the argument, which brings them that much closer to that exciting moment when they flip the switch to see how the machine runs. Hear that engine purr!
And if it clinks or groans or breaks down entirely, we still have time to make it work.
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