Having previously interviewed sisters Lexi and Stephanie Dellavia, I thought it best to give a teacher a chance to express their feelings about the dreaded “research paper season.” In her eighth month of teaching here at MHS, Honors English 9 and Creative Writing teacher Mrs. O’Rourke is experiencing the heavy load of having to grade 91 research papers ranging 5-7 pages each first hand, and for the first time.
Dodger: As a new teacher at MHS, what are your feelings coming into your first “research paper season?”
She was excited to have time to focus on writing skills but nervous about the logistics (limited availability of computers, etc.) “When I was in high school, I didn’t have to navigate my research with so much quantity. I only had to pay attention to reliable resources.”
Dodger: How relevant would you say this is to the work we’ll be doing in college?
“In my experience, it is important to know how to find information. There is no literary analysis in the freshman research paper, but instead, a controversial topic. In college, as an English major, I dealt with literary analyses, which might not be as applicable if not an English major, but you research all the same.”
Dodger: How do you remember your own experiences dealing with research papers?
“Well I don’t remember too much, but sophomore year of high school, I did one big research paper about a controversial person. We used print sources and web based sources and we had to make note cards, similar to the notes that you guys take today.”