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ELA 5: Research Topics and The Wave 28 Views
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Description:
Today's lesson will be all researching the wave. We'll look at all kinds of wacky different ways to flap your arms and hands around and—oh...wait. It's about the book The Wave . Well. We were ill-prepared for this description. Moving along.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Coop and Dino singing]
- 00:13
The Wave isn't just something annoying that people do at sports stadiums. [People performing a mexican wave in a stadium]
- 00:17
It’s also a pretty interesting novel.
- 00:20
This book touches on all sorts of topics… everything from education, to competition, [Coop discussing The Wave novel]
- 00:24
to violence, to identity. It basically runs the gamut.
Full Transcript
- 00:28
And, sure, you might not want to write a paper that covers all of these topics at once…
- 00:32
…but by picking one of ‘em, and starting with an engaging, relevant question, you’re [Hand picks a topic]
- 00:36
going to wind up with a good research paper.
- 00:39
Nay – an excellent research paper. How do you like them apples?
- 00:44
When trying to nail down the subject you want to focus on, think about what the characters
- 00:48
are doing in the novel… …what they're thinking… [Dino discussing how to pick a topic]
- 00:51
…or even the stuff they make you think about.
- 00:53
All fair game as topics for your paper.
- 00:55
But just deciding on a topic isn't enough to get you a suitable research question.
- 00:59
You also have to see if you can come up with a particular question about how the topic
- 01:03
relates to the text.
- 01:05
Example time! Let’s think about education in The Wave. This story is not only about [Man holding The Wave novel]
- 01:10
how students and teachers learn about academic subjects in school…
- 01:13
…but also about how they learn to be individuals and make their own choices.
- 01:16
Even, um…bad choices. [Man on top of a car and car crashes]
- 01:18
With that general topic in mind, there are a ton of research questions you could ask.
- 01:22
You could make it personal and ask: Would you like to have Ben Ross for a teacher?
- 01:26
Why or why not?
- 01:27
Or, you could think about what the characters learned and ask: Do you think Ben's experiment
- 01:32
was good for his students? What, if anything, do you think they learned?
- 01:36
And what did Ben learn?
- 01:37
You could even open up the question to consider what the book taught you about the world. [Girl reading The Wave]
- 01:41
Maybe: Has this novel helped you better understand the Holocaust? Why?
- 01:45
Or even: Given that Ben went so far in his attempts to help his students understand,
- 01:51
is The Wave commenting on a flaw in the education system?
- 01:54
See? One topic, a million questions.
- 01:57
And really, you can do the exact same thing with any other topic. [Man looking at himself in a mirror]
- 02:00
What if we were to focus on identity instead of education?
- 02:03
Seeing how all the students – and even the teacher – undergo drastic changes in their [Peoples clothing changing]
- 02:06
identities over just a few days, we might ask:
- 02:09
Which characters in The Wave undergo the most drastic identity changes?
- 02:13
Are these permanent changes or just temporary bouts of confusion?
- 02:17
Or, we could get a bit more specific and see how particular character’s identities changed.
- 02:21
Take Robert, for example.
- 02:23
We might ask: Why do you think Robert creates the position of bodyguard for himself?
- 02:27
How does that affect his identity?
- 02:28
We could also focus on Ben, asking: What happens to Ben when he becomes Wave leader?
- 02:33
Does he truly change as a person?
- 02:35
Or we could look at Laurie and ask: Why is Laurie able to stay true to herself in the [Laurie stood in a corridor]
- 02:39
face of The Wave? What about the other characters who manage to do the same thing?
- 02:43
With countless topics to choose from, and even more research questions to ask about
- 02:47
each one, you could write about The Wave for days on end. [Man at a table with scrumpled sheets of paper]
- 02:50
Just remember to take breaks for eating and sleeping and stuff.
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