The Year I Was born: An Autobiographical Research

Project

2nd Semester – World Literature Major Project

Student Objectives

• Conduct research (personal interviews, primary documents, and online research)

• Demonstrate an understanding of point of view by adopting the voice of a family member or another adult

• Write an autobiographical research paper

• Evaluate research

Research Project: The Year I Was born

• What happened the year that you were born? What was going on in your town? Were there important events going on in your state or country?

• For this project, you’ll find out all the answers! You’ll interview family members and adults, search for information at the the library, and look for details on the internet..

Procedure

• Record your information using the research form.

• Include all information you will need to prepare a Works Cited page.

• Interview your family and other adults about your birth and first year of life.

• Brainstorm a list of questions to ask.

Choose a Storyteller

• Person has to be older than you so he or she will know about the year you were born.

• It can be a family member (older sibling, a parent or grandparent, etc)

• It can also be a friend, or a community member or adult, religious leader or neighbor.

• Interview your storyteller about the year you were born.

Research

• In the library, consult periodicals such as Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report for the month and year you were born.

• Look for commercials, slogans, birth, deaths, sports, news, movies, books, plays, music, financial,, national news, international news, and religious events.

Internet Research

• Search for your birth date on the Internet, using sites given to you. Many of these sites give information for your birth date throughout history.

• To find more details for the month and year you were born, search your birth date and the following days for one month and choose only those events that occurred in your birth year.

Year I Was Born

• Weave all of the information you find together into an interesting story and include a works cited page.

• If desired, add a picture of yourself as a baby.

Research Paper Guidelines

• A research paper is a carefully planned essay that will share information or prove a point. It will include ideas from books, Web sites, documents, interviews, observations, and so on.

• This research paper should be at least three pages long and also require a title page, an outline, and a list of works cited.

Writing 1st Draft

• Develop your Introduction……

• First part should say something interesting, surprising, or important about the subject to gain reader’s attention.

• Start with a revealing story or quotation

• Give important background information

• Offer a series of interesting or surprising facts

Writing the Body……

• The next part is to write the main part of your research paper, the part that supports or proves your thesis.

• You can write freely as ideas come to mind.

• You can write systematically, carefully following your notes and writing plan.

Writing the Conclusion

• The final section of your paper should leave readers with a clear understanding of the importance of your research.

• Summarize the main points

• Draw a final conclusion.

• Discuss how your research has strengthened or changed your thinking about your subject-YOU

Documenting Your Sources

• Give credit in your paper for ideas and direct quotations that you have used from different sources.

• Make sure that you have copied this information accurately.

• Put the works-cited section together, listing all of the sources you have cited in your paper.