I-SEARCH EXPLANATION
The I-Search paper is designed to teach the writer and the reader something valuable about a chosen topic and about the nature of searching and discovery. As opposed to the standard research paper where the writer usually assumes a detached and objective stance, the I-
Search paper allows you to take an active role in your search, to experience some of the hunt for facts and truths first-hand, and to provide a step-by-step record of the discovery.
The first rule of the I-Search paper is to select a topic that genuinely interests you and that you need to know more about.
The I-Search paper will be written in four integrated sections: o o o o
Introduction
What I know, Assume, or Imagine
The Search
What I Discovered
The introduction of your essay should give your reader some indication of why you have chosen to write about this particular topic. Keep in mind that your essay needs to have some point. What message do you want to communicate to your reader. The purpose of this essay will be to inform your reader of your (1)original assumptions, (2)the information you found on your search, and (3)your discoveries.
Before conducting any formal research , write a section in which you explain to the reader what you think you know, what you assume, or what you imagine about your topic. There are no wrong answers here. You are basically establishing your hypothesis.
Test your knowledge, assumptions, or conjectures by researching your paper topic thoroughly. Write up your search in a narrative form, relating the steps of the discovery process (this means that you are going to tell the story of what you did to research this topic and what you learned in the process). Do not feel obligated to tell everything (you don't have to tell us the boring stuff), but highlight the happenings and facts you uncovered that were crucial to your hunt and contributed to your understanding of the information.
Source requirements for this section: you must use at least 3 sources and include a works cited. You must use at least one interview and at least one source from an electronic database (magazine, journal, or newspaper online).

: After concluding your search, compare what you thought you knew, assumed, or imagined with what you actually discovered, assess your overall learning experience, and offer some personal commentary about the value of your discoveries and/or draw some conclusions. Some questions that you might consider at this stage: o o o o
How accurate were your original assumptions?
What new information did you acquire?
What did you learn that surprised you?
Overall, what value did you derive from the process of searching and discovery?
Don’t just do a question/answer conclusion. Go back to the main point you want to make with this essay. What final message do you want to leave with your readers?
You will be required to attach a formal bibliography, following the MLA format, listing the sources you consulted to write your I-Search paper. There are also
Internet resources that can assist you with MLA Documentation and other aspects of writing a research paper.
Format of Final Draft of Essay
-12pt Times New Roman
-Double Spaced
-Name, date, period, I-search in upper left corner
-Title your piece.
-Include page numbers upper right hand corner
-MLA Works Cited page
Under final draft
-other initial drafts
-revision checklist
-interview questions/answers

English 10 CP
Research Options:
1. The author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich, began her project with concern and anger about millions of people trying to live on the low wages available to the unskilled. Her book shows that most low wage workers are very hard workers, but still struggle to pay the bills, rent, transportation, child care, etc…
Think about a social injustice or controversial issue that affects your community or nation. What do you see that is unjust or unfair? How does it affect your world? Why has this issue made an impact on you and what specific solutions can be found to influence the situation?
2. The author of The Color of Water , James McBride, grew up believing his mother to be
African-American, just as he identified himself. It eventually became evident, however, that she was not African-American at all, but in fact had been born in Poland as a rabbi’s daughter, brought to the U.S., and raised in the South. He spends the book telling his mother’s story as she told it to him, in an effort to understand his family and the circumstances they had dealt with.
What stories and traditions are there in your family? How has history affected who and where you are today? At the end of this project, you should have a greater understanding not only of your family background, but also how and why your family’s story took the course that it did.
3. Think of an occupation/field of study that you are currently interested in. Why does this interest you? What steps would you have to take to get there? Is there a specific college you would need to attend? Make sure you investigate the ins and outs of a job in this field. Create interviews or even shadow someone employed in the field. When all is said and done, we’ll see if you still want to get into that field of work.

Pre-Writing:
1.Which topic would you like to work with?
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2.Why? What is it that makes this an area of interest for you?
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3.What are some personal experiences, anecdotes, stories that would cause you to have an interest in this topic?
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4.You’re going to tell a story that demonstrates how or why you have some kind of interest in this topic. Given that, think about how you could lead into this story. Let’s treat it as a narrative.
Therefore, work out a lead, either dramatic or middle of scene.
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5.Given the lead that you just wrote, how would you organize the paragraphs? Remember, the idea is to tell the story that illuminates your interest in, for example, ambition to be something, learn about your family history, or your desire to learn/change a social injustice Create an outline that will give you a structure to work with as you craft your 1 st draft. Do that on the next page.

Working Title:_________________________________________
I. Introductory Paragraph -- Attention Getter
(This brief paragraph should grab the reader's attention and briefly introduce the topic.)
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II. What I Know
(This part tells what you already know, what questions you want to answer, and why the topic interests you.)
Things I already know
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2.__________________________________________________
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III. Questions I want to answer/Why I want to answer them
1.(question)_________________________________________________
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2.(Why)____________________________________________________
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3.(question)_________________________________________________
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4.(Why)____________________________________________________
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5.(question)_________________________________________________
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6.(Why)____________________________________________________
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Example outline on back of paper

EXAMPLE I-Search Outline
I.
Intro : The smell of sweet, red sauce saturates the air. As she circles the wooden spoon around the tarnished, silver pot, my aunt makes a joke about her husband, causing my grandmother to chuckle. Mom is massaging seasonings into the meat while humming and toe tapping to Dean Martin’s version of “Volare”. I stared at fresh bread on the counter, knowing it will be hours before both it and I will be able to enjoy that sauce. “When’s Dina coming?” I ask, knowing they too are wondering. The three of them pause, but only my grandmother steps away from her task to answer my question. She pinches my cheek and tells me to be patient.
“She will be here soon. And so will he.”
Thesis : Tradition is what not only defines families, but keeps them together..
II. What knew already about this topic
1: Having a big, emotional family is the norm
2: I love to cook with the women of my family
3: Teaching the boyfriend to make meatballs much more than it seems
(Teaching him the recipe = marriage material/Evaluated by family members)
4: It seems the women on one side of my family are closer than the other
III. Why/What I want to know
Question: Where am I from, do I share traits of those people?
Why: I am curious to know how different I am because of how far removed
I am from my ancestors.
Question: When traditions started/Ended
Why: Making Christmas dinner with the Palumbo women
Learn how my family came together (family rules of dating, etc)
Maybe I will want to bring traditions back when I have a family
Question: Why Ohio?
Why: My great-grandparents must have seen something here they
liked…has this placed changed or does it still have that quality they
looked for in a place to race a family?
Question: How are Italians different from Sicilians (women’s roles)
Why: One side of my family is from the end of the boot, the other is from
the island.

2 nd Half of I-Search outline
The Search -- What I learned
(This is where your research is important. Parenthetical documentation will be in this part.)
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B. _______________________________________________________
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C. _______________________________________________________
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D. _______________________________________________________
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E. _______________________________________________________
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Source_________________________________________________
IV. Reflections on My Search
(Sum up the experience and how you felt about what you learned.)
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B.________________________________________________________
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C.________________________________________________________
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Works Cited
(For your final draft, this will be done on a separate page.)
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I-Search Project Checklist
Name: ________________________
Topic: _____________________________________
First ½ of Paper Outline
Finished 2+ paragraphs
Full outline of paper
3 sources (1 interview, NO Wikipedia)
______/5 (5/8)
______/5 (5/12)
______/5 (5/13)
______/5 (5/20)
Draft in class for peer edit (5+ paragraphs)
Final draft with previous work
TOTAL
______/5 (5/20)
______/50 (5/22)
______/75

John Robert
I-Search
Calabrese 1 st
period
10 May 2007
SAMPLE PAPER
How Memories Are Made
On the dresser in my room is a very special object, a cup made by my grandmother. Grandma Kasamoto was a potter. Years ago, when I was five, I saw this pretty cup sitting on a shelf in Grandma’s pottery shop. It was white, with delicate green stems and leaves painted on it. The stems curled up the sides of the cup and ended in tiny purple flowers. I tried to grab it, and my mother told me not to touch it because it might break. However, my grandmother stopped her, sat me down, and handed me the cup to look at. From then on, whenever I visited Grandma, she would give me that cup to drink from. Last year, she died of a stroke at the age of sixty-seven. She left the cup to me to remember her by. I’ve thought ever since that I would like to learn how the cup was made.
I already knew that my grandmother had begun studying pottery when she was a teenager. She had apprenticed herself to Mr. Hamada, a master potter who used traditional techniques and materials. I also knew that my grandmother’s ceramics didn’t look anything like Mr. Hamada’s, but I didn’t know why or how she had moved so far away from the simple designs that her teacher favored.
Since I hadn’t often been able to watch my grandmother at work, I needed to find out more about ceramic art. What processes had she used to make her ideas take the shapes of beautiful cups and vases? What had made her choose the delicate designs she painted on her pieces? Could I become a master potter, too? I made a list of questions

about ceramics and a list of people who might know what had inspired Grandma’s designs. From those lists, I formed my research questions: How are functional ceramics—those that can be used for food and beverages as well as for decoration— made? And what motivated my grandmother to paint flowers on her ceramics? Finding the answers to these questions would make me feel closer to my grandmother, whom I loved very much.
I decided to start my research by visiting the pottery shop that my grandmother once owned. It now belongs to a potter named Claude Mackey, who also makes functional pottery but who, unlike Grandma, uses geometric designs to decorate his work.
Mr. Mackey agreed to let me watch him work over a period of several days so that I could see from start to finish how pots, cups, and other ceramics are made. Mr. Mackey even offered to let me try my hand at making pottery.
Because Mr. Mackey had not known my grandmother well and would not be able to tell me what had inspired her painting, I asked my mother where Grandma had gotten her ideas. My conversations with my mother led me to the library to find more information about flower designs. All in all, I found out more than I expected to learn about what it takes to create a piece of usable art and about how artists find inspiration.
When I visited Mr. Mackey’s pottery shop, I showed him my grandmother’s cup.
He explained that Grandma’s ceramics were made from molds and that the process is called slip casting. He showed me the large sink where he mixes the clay, or slip. The slip is then poured into plaster molds. After a while, the clay around the edge of the mold hardens a bit and the extra clay is poured out of the mold. The ceramic is then taken out of the mold. It is a light gray color and is very soft.

The next step is to carve a design onto the clay using little knives that look like dentist’s tools. The design is then painted with special paint that has clay in it. The ceramic is allowed to dry. Then it is placed in a very hot oven, called a kiln. It hardens the ceramic. Finally, the ceramic is coated with a glasslike liquid called a glaze and is baked in the kiln a second time. The whole process takes about five days (Mackey).
After talking to Mr. Mackey, I was still curious about the design on my cup. I asked my mother where Grandma had gotten her ideas for decorating her pottery. Mom explained that, in addition to being a potter, Grandma had studied ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging (Kasamoto). She gave me a small box of cards on which Grandma had written the names of certain designs. From those cards I learned that Grandma had modeled the flower designs on her ceramics after her favorite flower arrangements.
At the library, I found two books on the subject of Japanese flower arranging.
One, called Japanese Decorative Arts, was a large picture book. The section on flower arrangements was quite beautiful, but it didn’t provide a lot of information. The other,
Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arranging) Simplified, demonstrated methods for making different types of ikebana arrangements. While looking through this how-to book, I discovered several illustrations that reminded me of my grandmother’s particular style.
My next step was to search the World Wide Web for information about ikebana. I learned that flower arranging is an ancient Japanese art and that people must study ikebana for many years before they master it. The purpose of ikebana is to create an arrangement of flowers and other plants that looks ordered and balanced but not artificial.

The arrangement is supposed to look natural, as though it might have happened by accident (“Introduction”).
Unlike most Western flower arrangements, ikebana is not symmetrical. It uses natural shapes and empty spaces to create a sense of harmony. Ikebana works might use branches, grasses, fruits—even withered leaves—as well as flowers in bloom. I learned that my grandmother’s particular style of ikebana is called moribana, which means “piled up” (“History of Ikebana”). Moribana uses shorter-stemmed flowers arranged in a low container rather than the tall, upright stems found in other styles of ikebana (“Styles of
Ikebana”).
From my research, I learned the basics about how ceramics are made. I also learned that Grandma had combined the fairly modern, Western pottery-making technique of slip casting with the ancient Japanese art of ikebana to make my cup. Her study of flower arranging had inspired the beautiful paintings she used to decorate her ceramics.
My research was not as time-consuming as I expected it to be, although I did have to go to Mr. Mackey’s studio to learn about the pottery-making process. I was able to interview my mother to learn more about Grandma’s sources of inspiration. The librarian was very helpful, too, especially in suggesting that I look on the World Wide Web for information about ikebana. Best of all, my research increased my interest in pottery and taught me about ikebana, a part of my Japanese heritage. In the future I plan to study both pottery and ikebana in honor of Grandma and of my heritage. In fact, I am meeting Mr. Mackey next week for my next round of pottery lessons.

Works Cited
Bowes, Olive Scofield. Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arranging) Simplified. New York:
Sterling, 1971.
“History of Ikebana.” Ikebana International. 1996. Shadan Hojin Ikebana International. 6
Mar. 2000 <http://www1.biz.biglobe.ne.jp/~ikebana/ikebana/history.html>.
“Introduction.” Ikebana International. 1996. Shadan Hojin Ikebana International. 6 Mar.
2000 <http://www1.biz.biglobe.ne.jp/~ikebana/ikebana/whats-ikebana.html>.
Kasamoto, Sara. Personal interview. 3 Mar. 2000.
Mackey, Claude. Personal interview. 27 Feb. 2000.
Philanger, Marc, and Toshiro Hirakawa. Japanese Decorative Arts. New York: Rittinger
House, 1992.
“Styles of Ikebana.” Ikebana International. 1996. Shadan Hojin Ikebana International. 6
Mar. 2000<http://www1.biz.biglobe.ne.jp/~ikebana/ikebana/styles.html>.
Works cited Things to remember:
Alphabetize your sources
Indent the second line of your source
Page is double spaced—do not skip an extra space between sources