The literature review and final reflection will help you to learn (or practice) synthesis: the skill of making connections between and across different sources. In the Annotated Bibliography assignment, you learned to locate and paraphrase the major ideas from 5 distinct sources that related to your research question. In this assignment, you’ll use those same sources, but your goal will be to show some of the connections across the full body of scholarship that you’ve read, and between individual sources. You’re creating one complete puzzle using separate pieces.

To do this, you’ll first build a synthesis matrix for a weekly work assignment that will help you to start thinking about the connections that you’re seeing. This is what you’ll use to craft the majority of your literature review. You’ll also generate a brief proposal that indicates (1) who would benefit from knowing about your research, and (2) how you would share this research with an audience outside of this class OR how you would conduct further research to add to the existing body. You don’t have to actually do this: I just want you to think about who would benefit from the new knowledge you have gained.

You’ll also write a (very brief!) introduction that grounds your audience in your topic and that introduces its stakes. So, basically, you’re writing the first half of a scholarly research paper, and then saying how you’d share your findings.

At the end of this essay, you’ll reflect on your journey in English 110, and how you have met the learning objectives this semester. Using the evidence from your Slack channel and the evidence of what you’ve done inside and outside of class to make progress on the learning objectives, you’ll make some evidence-supported claims (remember those PEAS paragraphs?) about what you have learned this semester, and ultimately, what grade you have earned in this class.

Why am I doing this?

When you were doing the annotated bibliography assignment, you might have noticed that scholars cite a lot of other sources in order to make space for their own original argument. Sometimes, literature reviews alone are the scholarship: sorting through and synthesizing lots of sources for other researchers helps us to see trends across time. Writing one might help you to develop your skill in reading them for the coursework you’ll encounter later on.

Some of you might also eventually do some original research in a college-level class. To prepare yourself for this, you’ll generally need to read a lot in order to understand what has already been written about your topic, and to explain this to your audience. This is helping you to practice this skill.

Ultimately, writing literature reviews can be useful because they can help you to figure out what YOUR research should cover (since you don’t just want to repeat a study that someone else has already done). They will also help you to build your authority for talking about a particular topic. Essentially, a literature review shows your audience that you have “done your homework” and understand your topic really well.

What learning goals will I practice during this assignment?

• Learn research practices that will help strengthen your writing and thinking.
• Learn / practice reading strategies to summarize, synthesize, analyze, and critique other people’s arguments and ideas fairly, with a particular focus on synthesis.
• Take ownership of your own work and gain an understanding of your own voice, style, and strengths.

How have students in previous classes approached this assignment?

🏀 Example #1: The PE teacher and Steven Alvarez’s chapter.

A future physical education (PE) teacher was interested in learning more about strategies for encouraging bilingual education in physical education classes after reading Steven Alvarez’s chapter. In his e-mail to Alvarez, he explored his personal experiences with bilingual education for teachers (which were basically non-existent). Then, for Assignment 2, he did some library research on the topic to find out more about how bilingual educators teach physical education. In Assignment 3, he shared his findings in his literature review, and then proposed to develop a lesson plan that incorporates some of the strategies that he learned about that he could use when he is a teacher one day.

🎮 Example #2: The gamer and Scott Warnock’s chapter.

A student who loves playing video games read Scott Warnock’s chapter about digital writing’s (lack of) impact on academic writing. While he was convinced by Warnock’s argument that texting doesn’t ruin students’ grammar skills and wrote about this in his e-mail to Warnock, he wondered whether playing video games had a negative impact on students’ ability to get writing done in the first place. He did some library research on this topic in Assignment 2, and while he found several studies about video games and academic achievement, he didn’t see very much research about how video games impact students’ literacy habits specifically. For Assignment 3, this student summarized his findings, and then discussed the design of a survey that he wanted to give out to gamer friends in order to find out if video gameplay had impacted their ability or motivation to read or write for school in either positive or negative ways.

📉 Example #3: Student failure: a new topic for the new unit. 

A student decided that she wanted to change her topic idea after she finished the E-mail To the Author assignment. She read a chapter in Bad Ideas About Writing about failure. This reminded her of a time when she failed first-year composition before transferring to Queens College, and she became curious about the factors that cause a student to fail first-year writing classes. So this is what she studied for Assignment 2. She noticed that while the research on student failure looked at broad, structural reasons that students fail this class, most of it didn’t take students’ direct perspectives into account. For Assignment 3, she synthesized her findings from her annotated bibliography, and then she discussed how she would want to interview a few of her friends who had also failed first-year composition to learn more about their experiences. She wanted to share this research with the audience of first-year composition teachers and other instructors of first-year students at the college level.

❓❓Example #4: Reframing research around “critical thinking”

A student read a chapter in the E-mail To the Author assignment that was about the development of critical thinking skills. As a Chinese student who had spent the last two years of high school in the US, she became interested in the emphasis that the American education system puts on “critical thinking,” and wanted to research whether American students developed stronger critical thinking skills than Chinese students, which is what she did for Assignment 2. However, while doing this research, she noticed that the Western researchers were often asking questions in a way that would bias their findings toward American students. For Assignment 3, she synthesized her findings to show why this was the case, and then she discussed how she would want to interview several people in her life who had had experiences of both school systems in order to nuance the conversation about “critical thinking.”

Requirements for this essay: 

1. Contains a brief introduction of your topic
2. Synthesizes (not just summarizes) at least 4 of your 5 sources. Alternatively, you can choose a new or additional scholarly source.
3. Contains a brief description of the “audience” who would benefit from learning about your research
4. Contains a brief description of how you would plan to share what you’ve learned OR research that you would want to conduct yourself to add to the existing body
5. Contains a Works Cited page with citations that are formatted in either MLA, APA, or Chicago style
6. Includes a reflective section at the end where you talk about how you have met each of the learning goals of English 110 (see this website for detailed descriptions of each of them), what you’re still working on, and what grade you have earned. Use evidence-supported claims to do this (i.e. So, no “I should get an A because I worked hard.” Be explicit and clear about the work that you did and didn’t do. Refer to the grading agreement chart if you need to.) This part needs to be completed BEFORE your mandatory conference.
7. Draft of at least 750 words
8. Submitted through the Assignment Submission Form with all boxes completed filled out and annotated with questions for me
9. Attend a mandatory, end-of-semester conference with me to discuss your first draft and / or final grade in the class. Reminder: complete the reflective section of this assignment before this meeting.
10. Final draft of at least 1,500 words
11. Submitted through the Assignment Submission Form with all boxes completed filled out. Annotations are only necessary on the final draft if you want additional feedback from me.

Due dates (note: these are also listed on the course schedule)

Tuesday, May 16th: First Draft

The first draft of the literature review is due tonight on the last day of classes for English 110. This will also be the day to turn in remaining exit tickets from Unit 3, or revisions to your synthesis matrix if the first version didn’t meet requirements. We will sign up for (mandatory) one-on-one conference slots in class today as well. If you have not added the reflective component of your draft by today, please add it before your conference.

Tuesday, May 16th – Friday, May 19th: Draft and Final Grade Conference

There are mandatory conferences that are part of this assignment. You can choose the time and day that we meet. The conferences will take place on Zoom or Slack.

Monday, May 22nd: Final Draft

Final draft of literature review and any final revisions on weekly work for Unit 3 are due tonight by 11:59pm. This is also the final day to turn in any REVISIONS (i.e. not new drafts) from the major assignments (E-mail To the Author and Annotated Bibliography and Process Log) if you would like to try to meet more of the requirements for them. There is no final exam for this course.