Part 8: Wishing and Longing....

With the big project finally completed, I sat down and contemplated on the various research models, resources, and goals I set up for myself. Virginia Rankin heavily encourages students to reflect on their project both in the pre-search stage to the final end. Some of her key terms included:

Hopefulness: I began feeling worried that I didn't know as much as I thought I did about Jack the Ripper. And I worried as I continued to dig deeper and find more data and research, while developing more and more questions. Yet, I finally arrived at this stage with my final project and I feel positive about all my hard work, time, and effort put into this assignment. As Rankin says, "You know you can be successful" (Callison, 513).

Persistence: Rankin defines this as success that is both "exhilarating and worth the struggle" (513). Again, my anxiety and feeling of being in way over my head gradually subsided as I used graphic organizers and various other research tools to keep on track with my research. Do I think my Jack the Ripper blog and final project was worth it? Yes -- I really enjoyed learning more than I ever knew about royal conspiracies and Freemasons, and I hope my fellow students will also enjoy reading and viewing my blog and project.

Dr. Lamb's "Wishing" lesson also helped me to step back and reflect on the overall project. I feel the strengths of my blog and project included the use of many resources, both print and electronic, and from various viewpoints (Ripperologists, YA authors, and educational experts and professionals.). By using Dr. Lamb's 8 W's as a map, and incorporating different themes and research concepts (graphic organizers, visual literacy resources, charts, and "journaling") from others like Daniel Callison, Virginia Rankin, Barbara Stripling, and Jamie McKenzie, I feel I have a better sense of research and how to go about it...something I thought I already had shown and proved with my M.A. thesis in graduate school.

My weak points....probably not enough reflection, both from myself and from the above educational professionals. I am a perfectionist and always think I could have used better and more thorough information, even when the project is turned in. If I had it to do over again, I would definitely narrow my topic down even more: maybe focus only on the royal conspiracy; or compare and contrast Ripperologists' arguments with Patricia Cornwell's offering of Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper. Or maybe even done a visual literacy project and examined the Rippers letters, drawings, and compared and debated whether Sickert could have been the Ripper. Maybe used less text in my PowerPoint presentation -- something I'm new to creating. So many different angles and paths...and now I'm beginning to feel unsure about what I've already accomplished! LOL All these feelings and emotions are also common with today's students. Surrounded by so much information in various formats, controlled assignments that don't allow or encourage free inquiry, and the perplexing issue of how to begin, continue, and end a project are all important concerns for students. And these concerns must be met effectively by both the content teacher and especially, the school librarian.

I think next time for a project like this, I will focus more heavily on narrowing a topic; even though I thought I did by just focusing on theories of who Jack the Ripper was, in the end, I discovered there is still so much research out there to explore and discover. Overall, I hope to become a more mature information literate student and person by better reflecting "on each piece of information gathered, the manner in which information is linked as evidence, and the strength of conclusions derived from the evidence" (Callison, 510).


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Works Cited:

Callison, Daniel. The Blue Book on Information Age Inquiry, Instruction and Literacy. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

Lamb, Annette. "Wishing." http://virtualinquiry.com/inquiry/wishing.htm