What we don’t want are “advice” articles, which might not be of good quality (like “7 ways to boost creativity,” that kind of thing!).

The piece you’ll produce is an annotated bibliography, a type of research writing that gathers a collection of sources on a given topic. It’s not an essay, but rather is a list vs of sources, formatted in MLA style, with “annotations” to those entries. The annotations summarize the source and offer reflection on the source’s value. There are different types of and uses for annotated bibliographies in the world. Ours is modified for our purposes, so just follow the guidelines here 🙂
Our reading and viewing so far in this unit has provided working knowledge of the general research question driving this project: “How does creative/imaginative play impact us mentally, physically, and/or emotionally?” In essence, we are exploring some of Barry’s major premises, and thus far we’ve seen what a few experts actually have to say about this. We’ve also seen what popular culture (through film, for instance) explores about it.
For your project, you may use the question above as your topic, OR you may design a more narrow question related to our broader topic, one that’s maybe come out of the things we’ve been reading and watching so far. Maybe your question is, “What happens to children who aren’t allowed opportunities for imaginative play?” or maybe it’s, “How do adults benefit from creative play?” or “How does imaginative play help problem solving ability?” All three of these could work, and each has some connection to that broader topic we’ve been exploring. That way, you have the option of really tying this to something particular that’s useful for you. But feel free to take the broad topic (or one of my more narrow ideas, if you like), if that’s what works for you right now.
Once you decide on your research question, your job is to find 6 sources that help provide insights in response to it. You may use what you like from sources I’ve already given you. Barry is a source, too—a really helpful one! The sources can offer insight or the results of a study; they can offer theories on how creativity works and why. What we don’t want are “advice” articles, which might not be of good quality (like “7 Ways to Boost Creativity,” that kind of thing!). Nor do you want an “article” that’s so brief it offers no depth. The quality of sources—and who is expert behind the source—are crucial. That’s why I’ve tried to share sources that are presenting us with experts’ views and experiences (it also makes part of this a little easier for you).
Your six sources should include at least one of the following types:
An article from a major news source
An article from a scholarly journal
An annotated bibliography is formatted as a works-cited list, with 150-word annotations following each entry. This image offers a good example of what formatting looks like in such a piece, but the annotations are shorter than what you will do.
Format Example
The annotations should summarize the source and as you can see above, offer some insight about who the author is, along with a bit of reflection one what the source helps you understand, given what we’ve been exploring this term. Try to stick to that 150 word ballpark for annotations; it’s a good exercise in being succinct but detailed.
The final piece should be 1,000-1,200 words (double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman).
This time, the piece could be called “Annotated Bibliography,” but add a colon (:) then type a subtitle that captures the real topic.
The piece needs to follow MLA 9 guidelines.