WGS 100 & 200 Prof. Fisher Annotated Bibliography

Making a Difference—in five steps (proposal, annotated bibliography, response paper, op-ed letter and presentation).

1. proposal (1 page) followed by
2. annotated bibliography on the topic chosen followed by
3. gathering of friends and/or family to share with them a topic within our studies, thereby “making a difference” by enlightening others about an issue of importance to you
4. response paper (2-3 pp., typed, double spaced)—Students will write about what they did to “make a difference”, describing the setting, the people involved, the text in common that they shared, their goals for the session and what they believe was achieved in light of original objectives.
5. Op-ed letter: (1.5-2 pp.: 700-1000 words) a letter addressed to the NY Times in which you express your opinion on the topic you’ve chosen to research and teach others about (samples are on Bb, Course Documents).
6. If time allows, an oral presentation (5 min.) highlighting what you did and its effectiveness (date of final exam)

Students can choose to work individually or in small groups. You’ll select a project for the semester from the list below. You’ll research that topic and compile an annotated bibliographic entry about three relevant and authoritative sources you find through your research. Then you will inform others on campus or in your families/communities about this global feminist issue. Topics are:

•    Economic Empowerment and Women: How do micro-loans for women work and do they   work well in curtailing poverty?)
  • Education for Women: How does schooling help women to become self-sufficient?
  • Women and local leadership: How do women's status and their conditions for living improve when more women become recognized leaders?
  • Forced Prostitution and Sex Trafficking
  • Gender-Based Violence
  • Maternal Mortality
  • Honor Crimes

Group work: Note: Each student in the class will submit his or her own proposal and annotated bibliography. The presentation will be conducted in class by an individual or group members. I have no doubt that you will work cooperatively and each person will contribute 100% to the project, but if you have concerns please talk with me if an issue arises so I can help facilitate. If you wish to go this route and have concerns about how to manage a group project, please talk with me before making this decision so that all roles and the scope of individuals’ contributions will be clear.

• Members of group projects will complete group member evaluations at the end of the project.
•  Individuals will write their own annotated bibliographies and response papers even if the project is to be done by a group. The presentation will be conducted in class by group members.
• Annotated Bibliography: 1 page, 3 reliable, different library sources about the issue you address in your Making a Difference Project—Sources are summarized aptly, evaluated succinctly, and formatted correctly. See detailed instructions on Bb under Assignments. There'll be a library workshop to help you identify sources and learn to follow instructions for this task.

Response paper (2-3 pp., typed, double spaced)—In this short paper, students will write about what they did to “make a difference”, describing the setting, the people involved, the text in common that they shared, their goals for the session and what they believe was achieved as well as what was not possible to achieve in light of original objectives.

Possible, during the date of our final exam:

Oral presentation (5 min.) highlighting what you did and its effectiveness.

WGS 100

Making a Difference Projects: Four steps (proposal, annotated bibliography, response paper).

1. proposal (1 page form filled out)
2. annotated bibliography on the topic chosen
3. gathering of friends and/or family to share with them a topic within our studies, thereby “making a difference” by enlightening others about an issue of importance to you 
4. response paper (2-3 pp., typed, double spaced)

 Annotated Bibliography: 1 page, 3 reliable, different sources about the issue you address in your Making a Difference Project. One source can be from the web and the other two are from Library Databases. The sources you choose to annotate will be summarized accurately, evaluated succinctly, and formatted correctly. See detailed instructions on Bb under Assignments. There'll be a library workshop to help you identify sources and learn to follow instructions for this task.

Response paper (2-3 pp., typed, double spaced)—In this short paper, students will write about what they did to “make a difference”, describing the setting, the people involved, the text in common that they shared, their goals for the session and what they believe was achieved as well as what was not possible to achieve in light of original objectives. You will document the event with a video sent to me or evaluations or questionnaires given to participants, filled out and submitted with your response paper.  

Grading Rubric for Annotated Bibliographies

This description and rubric below will show you on what basis your annotated bibliographies will be graded

Your Annotated Bibliography is a compilation of three sources (articles) on the gender issue you’ve chosen.

Each bibliographic entry (the citation) is followed by a 100-150 word annotation that provides:

(1) The main idea(s) including a relevant quotation and (2) a sentence that evaluates the usefulness of the source you’ve read in terms of its providing accurate and important information about the issue you're researching. It's not enough to say, "This source is useful"--explain why or how it’s useful! You might say that a particular source is somewhat useful, and then you'd explain what is helpful to your research on this topic and what in this source is problematic or incomplete, for example, and therefore not useful. 

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. You will automatically fail the assignment if you plagiarize. Be sure you know how to avoid plagiarism when researching sources online and in professional journals or books.

In short, below are the criteria used to evaluate your annotated bibliography.                                                                                    

• Have you selected at least three relevant, reputable and different sources from our Library's databases?
• Have you summarized the source(s) clearly and succinctly (100-150 words for each), correctly including within the summary one quotation for each article that is relevant to or illustrates the main ideas?
• Have you properly formatted your sources, MLA style (models provided)?
• Have you described specifically how each source helps you (or doesn’t help you) to understand and learn about the topic under investigation?