Assignment:
Welcome to the wonderful world of dance research! For your final project, you are to engage in original research in dance and present your findings both in written and visual formats. Your first step is to think about a topic in dance that you are drawn to. Is there a specific style of dance you are curious about? If there something about a creative process that you would like to learn more about? Choose a general area to hone in on, then ask yourself: Why am I curious about this topic? Is it the social aspect? Gender roles? Costume theory and design? After pondering, your next step is to create a research question. This is a VERY SPECIFIC question that you want to investigate through research. Here are some examples of strong and weak research questions.
Strong:
How have the gender roles shifted in courtship social dances from 1900-2000?
Weak:
What are courtship dances of the 20th century?
After you have a strong research question, you can begin doing...RESEARCH! This means reading books and articles that pertain to your question. This can also mean viewing video and listening to interviews that pertain to your question. After you have done a little research, you are ready to create your thesis. A thesis is an original statement that you create that answers your research question in some way. Here are some examples of strong and weak theses related to the above research question:
Strong:
After analyzing X dance, Y dance, and Z dance, I have noticed that women have a more powerful and dynamic role in courtship dances in the late 20th century than they did in the early 20th century.
Weak:
Courtship dances have changed a lot throughout the 20th century.
Final Project/Presentation Components:
1.Critical Writing
a.1000 words
b.12 point font
c.Double spaced
d.1 inch margins
e.MLA in-text citations
f.MLA formatted Works Cited page
2.Visual Presentation
a.Displays the research question and the main elements of your research findings.
b. Must be an original creation. You may use photos, videos, etc from outside sources, with citations, however you must compose and organize them originally.
c.Must be in a digital format: video (online You Tube,etc) , Power Point, photo presentation, etc.
Writing Structure:
1.Introduction
2.Research question/Thesis
3.Explanation of findings
4.Re-evaluation/reflection of research question
5.Conclusion