Part 1: Watching...

After reading more on Dr. Lamb's "8W's" and some of other inquiry/search models described in Appendix B (Callison, 584-596), I have decided I want to incorporate as many different thinking, reflecting, and analyzing models as possible. Such concepts will be intermingled with my own research struggles and process. Some individuals and their information inquiry models I will be consulting throughout my entire blogging process include Dr. Lamb', Virginia Rankin, Carol Kuhlthau, Daniel Callison, and Jamie McKenzie. I will be detailing my own research journey and growth, and also how I would direct/assist a high school student conducting a research paper.

As part of the Watching stage, I went to Barnes and Noble and began browsing through my favorite sections: History, True Crime, and Biographies. Since this state is about being more aware of your environment and personal interests, I decided I wanted to select a history topic. Then I found what I wanted... came across Patricia Cornwall's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed and decided I would do my personal inquiry on Jack the Ripper. Specifically, I asked myself some questions from Carol Kuhlthau's Information Searching Process (ISP), including:

What do I know already about this topic and the theories?
What do I know about Cornwell's theory?
What do I want to know and learn? (Kuhlthau)

Next, I sat down with pencil and notebook (as this is my personal research style preference) and wrote down some questions pertaining to what approach or angle do I want to take on this topic. Do I want to explore the social aspects of 18th century England; past and present forensic scientist studies examining who exactly Jack the Ripper was; examine the society of Ripper experts called "Ripperologists"; or focus on the different speculations and debates on who the Ripper was: royalty or average citizen.

This free style of inquiry is so different for me. As a history major who has done many research papers and a thesis (which all entail concentrating on particular themes and formulating your own thesis), I am extremely excited to be able to explore as many or as little of the above angles I mentioned in the above paragraph.

All this watching and exploring has prompted me to once again set down and come up with a list of specific questions, and, sketch out some kind of webbing chart to provide me with a basic road map on inquiry exploration (Callison 40).

Finally, I reflected on how this topic would fit into a high school student's world and wondered how their environment influenced them. Maybe studying world history sparked an interest -- or reading an article in an newspaper or magazine/journal -- or watching a documentary on "The History Channel" or watching Johnny Depp in "From Hell." These are just a few examples of literacies (visual, technological, and media) that surround students today. As a media specialist, I would definitely encourage any student who came to me for more information on anything to consider such literacy sources and to encourage them to just brainstorm some ideas and questions that are sparking this inquiry.

My next step will to begin gathering some basic background information, either through an online encyclopedia like http://www.wikipedia.org/ and some general nonfiction works.


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Sources Cited:

Callison, Daniel and Leslie Preddy. The Blue Book of On Information Age Inquiry, Instruction
and Literacy. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

Cornwell, Patricia. Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed. New York: Putnam's,
2002.

Kuhlthau, Carol. "Learning in Digital Libraries" An Information Search Process Approach." Library Trends 45 (1997): 7o8-725