Shawn Ivanovitch
English 102/3952
Professor Rodrigo
July 9, 2007
My Research Proposal
Overview:
For my research project I chose to look at how stress is affecting students. I will look at causes of stress, and the effects of that stress. I will also look at why some students are affected more than others, and some factors of the stress. Also I want to examine if stress leads to violence, or if violence in schools is a cause of stress. I will also look into the after affect of students who experienced trauma in school, such as after the school shooting at Columbine or Virginia Tech. I am interested in this topic as I am now a student going back to school, and I also have children in school.
Focused Research Question:
What is the result of stress on students and does it lead to violence? I will look at the recent and past shootings at school to see if stress was a factor.
Why is this Topic Controversial?
I think this topic is controversial because there are people, my research has shown, who think stress is a big factor, and others who think that violence such as shooting were just evil acts by evil people. There are two sides to almost every issue, in this case there are also the people in-between, like myself, who think stress may be a factor, but to snap and kill people that is a little over the top. Another controversy in this issue is how some schools are now trying to combat this problem by cutting homework, or adding yoga or massage during school.
My Experience:
As a parent I do have experience with this, while not directly related, having to explain situations like this to my children when they happen. I also have experience with the stresses of homework and assignment deadlines on my children. If that was no enough already I have had to deal with my children being bullied at school, and know first hand the stress that brings them in their every day lives. I have also picked my children up from school after lockdowns, situations at school that required them to be locked inside a classroom due to someone or thing outside being a direct danger to them. In one case with my eldest child it was due to the police chased a man on campus with a gun, all of these cases have stressed them greatly. I am also a student myself, as I have gone back to school, and I also have deadlines to meet, and on top of that my normal day to day work it all adds up.
My Purpose:
My purpose or choosing this topic is it interests me to examine this situation. Being a parent and a student I am in the position of being on more than one side of this topic. With the recent and past school shootings it also should prove to be an interesting topic with a lot of information to be found.
My Opinion:
My current opinion of this topic is stress can cause a lot of problems and if people are not properly educated on dealing with it the results can be sad. While I think stress can cause problems on the other hand I do not think it is the only factor leading to these tragedies.
My Audience:
The people who will read this paper are my teacher and fellow students. This works out well as this is also my target audience because everyone, and especially students, should know the warning signs of stress and positive ways to deal with it.
What my Audience Needs.
I think my audience needs is to be informed about stress and positive ways to deal with it. I also hope they take from this paper ways to notice these warning signs.
Limitations:
As I am discovering there is not all that much research on the correlation of stress to violence in schools. There is a lot of information about one or the other on the other hand it will just be a lot of work to link the topics.
Plan and Timeline:
The timeline for this project is five weeks even though one of those weeks is already gone. My plan for finishing on time is to devote at least 5 hours a day on this research project and keep plugging away to hopefully finish on time.
This has also been submitted to Turnitin.com
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