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Writing · Writing: Research, Forms and Conventions

Research I: Planning the Independent Study Unit (ISU) and Writing a Proposal

1.3 2.1About 70 minutes
Learning goals
  • I can explain what an independent study unit (ISU) asks of me and how it prepares me for university research.
  • I can turn a topic into a focused, comparative and arguable research question with a working thesis.
  • I can write a one-page ISU proposal that names my texts, question, lens, planned sources and schedule.
  • I can build a backward plan with milestones and conferences, and track my progress in a research log.
  • I can revise my question or scope when the evidence or the calendar tells me to.

Words to know

independent study unit (ISU)
A long project, often six to eight weeks, in which a student chooses texts or a topic, researches it independently and produces a major piece of writing, often with a seminar or presentation.
proposal
A short document that asks for approval of a project by explaining what you will study, why, how and when.
research question
The open, focused question your project sets out to answer.
working thesis
A provisional answer to your research question, which you expect to refine as you read and research.
primary text
In literary research, the novel, play, poem or film you are analysing.
secondary source
A work about your primary text or topic, such as a scholarly article, a review or an interview with the author.
scope
How much your project tries to cover: the number of texts, the depth of analysis and the time available.
milestone
A checkpoint with a date, such as a proposal, an annotated bibliography or a draft, that shows you are on track.
backward planning
Building a schedule by starting from the due date and working back to today.

Eight weeks, two novels, one essay

It is November. Your teacher hands out the ISU outline: choose two novels you have not studied in class, read them on your own, research what critics have said, and write a comparative essay of about 2000 to 2500 words, with a seminar at the end. The due date is eight weeks away.

Eight weeks feels like forever. It is not. Students who struggle with the ISU rarely struggle because they cannot write; they struggle because week 7 arrives and they have read one and a half novels and found no sources.

Many Ontario Grade 12 English courses include an ISU or a similar independent project, though the length, texts and final product vary by school, so your teacher's outline always rules. The curriculum skill underneath it is expectation 1.3: locate and select information to effectively support ideas for writing, using a variety of strategies and print, electronic and other resources. At Grade 12, you are expected to run that process independently and over a long time. That is exactly what first-year university essays ask, often with less reminding. This lesson is about the planning that makes the rest possible.

Remember from Grade 11

In Grade 11 (ENG3U, Writing: Research, Forms and Conventions) you wrote a research plan with a main question and sub-questions, built nested Boolean search strings, kept a research log, evaluated sources for reliability, objectivity and completeness using SIFT and lateral reading, wrote an annotated bibliography, and cited harder MLA cases. Grade 12 asks you to sustain all of that on your own for weeks, to write a formal proposal, to work with scholarly criticism, and to finish with a complete MLA research paper.

Step 1: Choose texts and a topic you can live with

You will spend about fifty hours with this project. Choose carefully.

  • Pick texts that talk to each other. Two works that share a genre, a theme, a setting or a problem give you something to compare: two post-apocalyptic novels, two coming-of-age stories from different decades, a novel and the play or film it inspired.
  • Check the level. Grade 12 ISU texts should be rich enough to reward close reading and to have attracted some critical attention. Ask your teacher or school librarian if you are unsure.
  • Check access. Can you get both texts for the whole project (school library, public library, e-book loan)? Are there reviews, interviews or scholarly articles about them?
  • Avoid the texts you have already studied in class, unless your teacher allows it.

For example, Priya chooses Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and The Marrow Thieves by Métis writer Cherie Dimaline. Both are Canadian novels set after a catastrophe, and both are about what people carry forward when the world they knew is gone.

Step 2: Ask a question worth eight weeks

A strong ISU question is:

  • Comparative. It asks how the works are alike and different, not only one or the other. How do both novels... is better than Is Station Eleven good?
  • Arguable. Thoughtful readers could disagree about the answer.
  • Focused. One idea, one angle. Survival in two novels is a topic; How do the two novels present storytelling as a way to rebuild community? is a question.
  • Lens-aware. Many Grade 12 questions use a critical lens (for example a feminist, postcolonial, ecocritical or Marxist reading). You practise lenses in Reading Literary Texts and Writing: Essays and Literary Analysis; in the ISU, you choose one that fits your texts and say why.
  • Researchable. Critics and scholars have written about your texts or the issue, so you can join a conversation that already exists.

Then write a working thesis: your best current answer. It is a promise to yourself, not a contract. Researchers expect their thesis to change as they learn; the point is to read with a direction.

From a topic to a working thesisTopicdystopian novelsFocused topiccommunity after collapse in two Canadian novelsResearch questionHow do the two novels use stories to rebuild community?Working thesisBoth make stories a survival tool; only one ties them to land.Each rung is narrower and more arguable. The thesis stays provisional until the evidence is in.
Each step narrows the project and makes it more arguable. Notice that the working thesis already names a similarity and a difference, which is what a comparative essay needs.

Step 3: Write the proposal

A proposal is a short, formal piece of writing in its own right (expectation 2.1 includes choosing the right form for the purpose). It asks your teacher to approve the project, and it forces you to make decisions early. A typical ISU proposal is one page (about 300 to 500 words) and includes:

  1. Working title.
  2. Primary texts, cited in MLA format.
  3. Research question and working thesis.
  4. Rationale: why these texts belong together, and why the question matters.
  5. Lens or approach: the critical lens or angle you will use, and why it fits.
  6. Planned secondary sources: the kinds you will look for (scholarly articles, reviews, author interviews, background on history or culture) and where you will search. You do not need final sources yet.
  7. Timeline with milestones (see Step 4).
  8. Anticipated challenges and your plan for them: a long book, few scholarly sources, a heavy month for other courses.

Write the proposal in clear, formal prose with headings. Use first person where your teacher allows it (I will compare...); proposals often do.

Step 4: Plan backward, then track forward

Backward planning starts at the due date. If the final copy is due on the last day of week 8, the revised draft must exist by the end of week 7, the full draft by the end of week 6, and so on back to today. Write every milestone on a calendar you actually look at.

Build in three protections:

  • Buffer time. Leave two or three days you hope not to need. Something always takes longer.
  • Conferences. Book short meetings with your teacher at the proposal, the thesis and the draft stages. Bring specific questions (Is my lens a good fit? Is two critics enough?).
  • A research log. Keep the Grade 11 habit: after each session, one line on what you read or searched, what you found and what is next. In an eight-week project, the log is how you know whether you are behind.

If you fall behind, re-scope early, with your teacher's approval: narrow the question, reduce from three texts to two, or focus on fewer passages. Students who change plans in week 4 recover; students who wait until week 7 rarely do.

An eight-week ISU plan, built backward from the due dateWk 1Wk 2Wk 3Wk 4Wk 5Wk 6Wk 7Wk 8Proposal + conferenceRead both texts, notesFind secondary sourcesAnnotated bibliographyThesis + outline conferenceDraftRevise, peer edit, proofreadFinal copy + seminarBars overlap on purpose: you keep reading while you search, and start annotating before searching ends.
A backward plan for an eight-week ISU. Yellow bars are checkpoints with your teacher, blue bars are reading and searching, and green bars are writing. Your own dates will differ; the shape is what matters.
Scope: three things you cannot all maximizeDepth (close reading, criticism)Breadth (number of texts)Time (weeks you have)yourquestionMore texts =less depth,unless more timeTwo texts readclosely beatsfour read thinly
Scope is a balance. With a fixed amount of time, adding texts takes depth away. Most strong ISUs study two works closely rather than many works briefly.
Worked example

Let's write a one-page ISU proposal

Priya has chosen Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel) and The Marrow Thieves (Cherie Dimaline). Her teacher wants a proposal in one week.

  1. Working title. Carrying the Story: Storytelling and Community in Station Eleven and The Marrow Thieves. (A colon title names the hook, then the subject.)
  2. Primary texts in MLA. She copies details from the editions she has: Mandel, Emily St. John. Station Eleven. [publisher], [year]. and Dimaline, Cherie. The Marrow Thieves. [publisher], [year]. She fills in the brackets from each book's copyright page.
  3. Question and working thesis. How do the two novels present storytelling as a way to rebuild community after catastrophe? Working thesis: Both novels make storytelling a means of survival, but The Marrow Thieves ties stories to land, language and Indigenous continuity, while Station Eleven ties them to art preserved from the old world.
  4. Rationale. Both are Canadian post-catastrophe novels from the 2010s; both use groups that travel together; both include stories told within the story. Comparing them shows different ideas of what must be saved.
  5. Lens. A postcolonial lens for The Marrow Thieves, alongside attention to how Indigenous writers and critics describe the novel, so that her reading is informed by the community the book comes from. She notes she will look for criticism by Indigenous scholars and interviews with Dimaline.
  6. Planned sources and searching. Scholarly articles from a literature database (search: ("Marrow Thieves" OR Dimaline) AND (story OR storytelling OR narrative)), published interviews with both authors, reviews in major newspapers, and a reliable source on residential schools for background.
  7. Timeline and challenges. She pastes in her eight-week plan and names one risk: Few scholarly articles may exist on Station Eleven because it is recent; if so, I will use author interviews, reviews and articles on post-apocalyptic fiction in general.

A one-page proposal with a title, MLA citations, a comparative question, a working thesis that names a similarity and a difference, a rationale, a lens, a search plan, a timeline and a realistic backup plan. Her teacher can approve it, or suggest changes, before she has spent a single week in the wrong direction.

Hands-on activity

Draft your ISU proposal at the kitchen table

You need: two books you have access to (from your shelves, a school or public library, or an e-book loan), a calendar, paper or a document. If you do not have an ISU yet, use two books or films you know well.

  1. Write three sentences on why these works belong together (a shared genre, theme, setting or problem).
  2. Climb the ladder: topic, focused topic, research question, working thesis. Make sure the thesis names one similarity and one difference.
  3. Write one search string you would use in a database to find criticism of either work.
  4. Make a backward plan: write the due date (real or imagined), then mark five milestones back to today.
  5. Write the proposal under the eight headings from Step 3, in about one page.
  6. Ask a family member to read only your question and thesis and tell you, in their own words, what your essay will argue. If they cannot, sharpen it.

What to look for: a comparative, arguable question; a thesis that is specific to these two works; realistic sources; milestones with real dates; at least one named risk with a plan.

Just for fun

The ISU proposal is the only document in high school where I will read the whole book is a legally binding promise. Your future self, in week 7, will be checking the signature.

Your turn

1

Is Survival in dystopian fiction a research question? Explain.

2

Make this question comparative: How does The Marrow Thieves show the importance of language?

3

Name four parts of an ISU proposal.

4

What is the difference between a primary text and a secondary source in a literary ISU?

5

Why is the thesis in a proposal called a working thesis?

6

Your ISU is due on the last day of week 8. Using backward planning, when should the full first draft be finished?

7

Give one sign in week 4 that you should re-scope your project.

More practice: warm-up

1

What does ISU stand for?

2

Which curriculum expectation is about locating and selecting information for writing?

3

What is a milestone?

4

Name one advantage of booking conferences with your teacher.

5

True or false: a proposal is written after the essay is finished.

More practice: on your own

1

Rewrite this weak working thesis so it is arguable and comparative: Both novels are about stories.

2

A student proposes four novels for an eight-week ISU. What would you advise, and why?

3

Write a research-log entry for a session in which you read chapters 1 to 10 of one novel and flagged three passages about memory.

4

Why should a rationale explain why the two texts belong together?

5

Your planned lens is ecocritical. Write one sentence for the Lens section of a proposal explaining why it fits two novels set after environmental collapse.

Challenge

1

Write a complete Anticipated challenges section (three to four sentences) for an ISU on two recent novels with little scholarly criticism.

2

Explain how the ISU's planning stage connects to expectation 1.3 at the Grade 12 level, in three sentences.

3

In week 5, your evidence shows your working thesis is wrong: the two novels treat storytelling in almost the same way. What are two honest options, and which would you choose?

Check your understanding

Quiz

1.

Which is the strongest ISU research question?

2.

What is the main purpose of an ISU proposal?

3.

In backward planning, you start from:

4.

A working thesis is best described as:

5.

A student has eight weeks and wants to study four novels. The best advice is:

6.

Which is a secondary source for an ISU on The Marrow Thieves?

For parents and teachers

Big idea: many Grade 12 University English courses include an independent study unit (ISU): a long, self-directed project that ends in a research essay and often a seminar. The curriculum expectation behind it is Writing 1.3 (locating and selecting information to support writing), and at Grade 12 students are expected to manage that process independently over several weeks, as they will in university.

How to help: ask to see the proposal and the plan. Put the milestones on a family calendar. Once a week, ask one question: What did you finish, and what is next? A short, regular check is far more useful than a rescue the weekend before it is due. If your teen needs books, a public library card gives free access to print and e-book loans and to research databases.

Common difficulties:

  • Choosing texts that are too long or too similar to compare in an interesting way.
  • A question that is really a topic, or a thesis that only says both books are about the same thing.
  • Planning forward from today instead of backward from the due date, so the draft has no time for revision.
  • Waiting too long to re-scope after falling behind. Encourage an early conversation with the teacher.

When texts by First Nations, Métis or Inuit writers are chosen, encourage your teen to look for criticism and interviews by Indigenous writers and scholars, so their reading is informed by the communities the works come from.