Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness: Executive Summary/Factsheet - an alternative project, debuted Summer I, 2011

In place of the Group Project with resulting PowerPoint (with or without the Problem-Based Inquiry papers), students work individually to produce something different.

Students would still:

1. Do research and obtain a broad understanding of their topic
2. Find primary sources, especially statistical
3. Find up-to-date resources plus background/scholary resources.

Instead of merely turning in a final assignment, students have the potential to contribute the knowledge base:

 Contribution to the Information Superhighway [an early euphemistic phrase for the World Wide Web]: In addition to course submission, those Executive Summaries and Factsheets adjudged by the teacher and librarian to be of the highest quality and requiring little re-formatting will be added to the Poverty, Hunger,  and Homelessness LibGuide under Student-Generated Factsheets tab [new], with permission of the creators. Due to the timelineness factor of the subject areas, these Factsheets will remain on this site for approximately one year.

For both the Executive Summary and the Factsheet, students will use a variety of online sources, including but not limited to online reference books, online books, online full-text journal and magazine articles, and information from reliable websites. While it is certainly permissible to use material from printed books, most of the information for this project will need to come from more timely, online sites.

Research Support Materials:

1)      LibGuide: Poverty, Hunger, and Homelessness http://library.indianastate.edu/poverty is starting point for locating resources

2)      You must utilize some of the many statistical sites available to you for up-to-date primary source material. See the LibGuide for starting points, including the US Census Bureau/American Factfinder.

3)      You must use the Library’s Article databases, found both on the LibGuide and on the Library’s Electronic Resources page http://tg5zw4at7r.search.serialssolutions.com/ - this is also one of the ways to locate online full-text books.

4)      Do not use information or statistics more than 5 years old UNLESS the information/statistic is absolutely necessary and you have not found any more recent sources [mostly with some international and country-specific areas]

5)      EndNote Bibliographic Management software: it is imperative that you format your resource list properly. EndNote will help you with this. You can also use EndNote to write your initial notes. Download EndNote here http://library.indstate.edu/intranet/endnote/ - View tutorials here http://library.indianastate.edu/content.php?pid=18359&sid=125825

Choice of topic:

Topic must be related to Poverty, Hunger, Homelessness. Early exploration using some of the general reference links on the LibGuide, including but not limited to CQ Researcher, will help you.

Project Timeline [Summer II 2011]:

·         Sunday, July 17: Choose topic after doing some background reading – submit to teacher and librarian via email

Librarian gives feedback to

• Student topic choice
• Information included in Draft of Outline
• Executive Summary Draft
• Factsheet Draft
• References - quality, format

Librarian scores final Executive Summary, Factsheet, References for

• APA formatting
• Other formatting requirements
• Basic project requirements; e.g. minimum 20 sources, including 1 CQ Researcher
• Instructor scores documents for general content [writing ability] and inclusion of required CONTENT, as indicated on the Content Outline


Scoring [as used Summer II, 2011]:

100 POINTS: Executive Summary document + Factsheet document: inclusion of REQUIRED CONTENT components PLUS student's writing/communication abilities

50 POINTS: Combined References: Overall QUALITY [related to Resource Quality Grid] PLUS APA FORMATTING compliance

25 POINTS: Compliance with other 'Absolute' Requirements [Rubric/Checklist]

25 POINTS: Compliance with other items on Rubric/Checklist

Total: 200 POSSIBLE POINTS

REQUIRED COMPONENTS:

Within Executive Summary and/or Factsheet you must include these components:

a)      Definition/description of the overall issue and the specific issue chosen for your project 

b)     Statistics – primary preferred – or other quantitative data that covers a minimum of 3 of the following layers:

1. Globally/Internationally
2. Nationally
3.  Indiana
4. Wabash Valley/Terre Haute [Vigo County] 

c)      Descriptive factors: cover a minimum of 3 of the following factors:

1.  Economic
2. Historical
3. Psychological
4. Sociological
5. Philosophical
6. Ethical

7)      Political [can be generally i.e. conservative/liberal or specific to Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, etc. Party Platforms]

8)      Other significant factor you discover; must be approved by teacher

d)     Solutions & Support: in addition to 1) Basic, cover a minimum of 4 of the following areas, and a mix of international, national, state, and local; mix of what individuals can do as well as organizations:

1. REQUIRED: Basic (the absolute, bottom-line); major organizations within federal/state bureaucratic structure
2. Educational
3. Financial/Economic
4. Political
5. Legal
6. Sociological
7. Activist/Grassroots/Fundraising
8. Monetary/In-kind
9. Spokespersons for specific problem (celebrities, politicians, authors, experts

10)  Support needed but not identified (something that is NOT available, that you notice/become aware of while seeing what IS there

11)  Other significant factor you discover; must be approved by teacher

e)      Further Information [section labeled FURTHER INFORMATION to be included on FACTSHEET: Minimum of 5 items; must include COMPLETE URL - list of book titles, magazine articles, reports/studies and MAJOR organizational websites