POL Prep, Day 1- Exploring Ideas

POL Prep and Frameworks
All documents related to your POL will be linked on the SENIOR PROJECT page of my DP, in the "Semester 1- What the hell am I doing, anyway?" section.

1. POL Overview and Schedule: This document outlines what you need to include in your presentation, the critique process, what you need to do to pass, and other requirements.  Review the requirements, frameworks, and sign up for ONE presentation time spot, and TWO paneling time spots.  You may not panel on the day you present, and your paneling must be done on two different days.  No more that 7 people per paneling time.
2. POL Prep Calendar:  This gives you an overview of our preparation process for the next few weeks.  Check here if you want to know what we're doing in class, and what your daily goals are.

​Starter: Things that make you go, "hmmmm..."
For your starter, list 3-5 topics you are interested in.  Don't worry about if these are academic enough, if they are "good", etc.  It could be anything you have an interest in, and could be focused more academically (for a thesis) or practically (for your project).  The key piece here is that you are genuinely curious about the topic/skill/project.  So, for example, my list would probably look like this.  I suggest you write a general topic,  a question or two about that topic, and a potential project idea.  

1. Science fiction writing (What makes a good sci fi book?  Why is sci fi often looked down upon?  How much of it comes true?)  Project idea- Write a sci-fi short story, or set up a review site for sci-fi geared towards teenagers.
2. Spoken Word Poetry (What makes it powerful?  What's the history?  How does it differ and build on other poetic forms?)  Project idea- Put on a slam poetry night, perform poetry
3. Consciousness (What is it?  Do other animals have it?  How do we know?  Can you have consciousness without language?)  Project Idea- No idea.  Maybe intern with a psychology lab?  Conduct my own research on this?
4. Writing (Why is it so hard to help students improve their writing?)  Project idea- Create a student writing center and structures to train student writing tutors at AHS, pilot the program at AHS.
5. Freedom of Speech (What are the pros and cons of limiting hate speech?  Is total freedom of speech good or bad?)  Project Idea- Do first person research on limiting speech, or effects of hate speech, or create a campaign for responsible speech and pilot it, see how effective it is.

Share three of your ideas with the person sitting next to you.  Talk about the strengths and weaknesses of different ideas.

Initial Research/Idea Winnowing/Notes
Take your top TWO ideas/topics from your list above.  Your task for the next two days is to spend ONE HOUR on each idea, and find at least one source that addresses your interest (more sources are, however, encouraged!).  I suggest starting with google.  :)  We'll get to the seriously academic next semester.  Any source is find here- newspapers, wikipedia, etc. are all fair game.  For each of your three potential topics, you need to have notes that include:

1. Why are you interested in this topic?  Where did your interest come from?
2. Title/author/url of the source you found
3. What did you learn from this source?
4. What new questions did this raise for you?
5. How does this impact where you want to take your research?   Would you need to refine your question?  How?
6. How easy was it to find information about this topic?
7. After having done this initial research, how interested are you in making this your topic for your senior thesis/project?  Give a quick explanation.

HOMEWORK:
Complete notes and research for ONE topic.  Due: SOC, Tuesday.