How to do the Lit Review

2. Today, we are having a workshop about how to create the title, keywords, abstract, and Literature Review.

The Literature Review is a major component of your research essay and talks about the status quo of current research about your topic - its achievement, and its shortcomings which you are trying to fill by adding your own research.

It is a SYNTHESIS of your 3 external sources, not a SUMMARY. Merge, contrast, and compare your sources to one another, and find their shortcomings that you are going to fill with your own research.

Read the following description of what the fourfold Literature Review is intended for. On this site, you will also find a link to the APA Style Manual which helps you create the citations for your Lit Review. Remember the rules: Quotes that are under 4 lines go in your text flow and have quotation marks, and you indicate your source in parentheses: (Miller 2008, 59). Quotes that are 4 lines and over are indented, have NO quotation marks, and also have the source indication in parentheses. (See example text below.)

Then, create your own Literature Review, and type it into the Word document with the 12 headlines we created together. Due date for the finished Lit Review is Wednesday, Oct. 29th, at class time.

LENGTH REQUIREMENT:
Below is a sample of a Literature Review I wrote for an education course:
(This is also the minimum length yours should be; if you have 3 external sources, write 2-3 pages (double-spaced; we'll single-space later, after I and your peers have edited your paper.)_______________________________________________________

A C.A.L.L. for Fresh Wind in Grammar Teaching: Computer Assisted Language Learning as Best Practice for Literacy Education

Literature Review

Who wants to learn grammar? Let’s put it another way: who wants to teach it? Given that this highly analytical topic with its morphology, etymology, and diagramming is one of the most unpopular curriculum components in English language arts both in the conception of students and teachers, there must be a best practice to convey it in an agreeable, content-immersed manner proper for our computer age. We notice that students in middle and high schools have a more and more limited knowledge of technical terms such as genitive or accusative, but skills in information technology exceeding those of the teachers. Instead of bemoaning the status quo, we should readily address those skills, for in 2012, technological literacy will become part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), or the Nation's Report Card, which means that in addition to reading, writing, math, science, history, etc., the technology literacy of students will be measured nationwide.

This important milestone in educational history justifies a more intense integration of information technology into the classrooms, exposing students and teachers alike to new software products and corresponding skills. Why not try it in grammar teaching? It can be argued that instead of drilling the technicalities of Greek and Roman grammar – a language the modern student does not understand – it might make more sense for teachers to use an alternative approach to teaching grammar, such as by imitation strategy, conveying it in the form of computer-assisted instruction in order to address the needs of the modern student.

More and more constructivist teachers change their methodologies by addressing their tech-savvy young audiences in a motivating way. According to Dexter and Anderson (1999), teachers make use of computer technology along a continuum of instructional styles ranging from instruction to construction, exposing their students to either drill and practice, with computer technology as complementation, or, respectively, to active work for knowledge-building, with computers as a tool (Dexter & Anderson 1999, 2). They purport that teachers are not only constant decision-makers, but also learners who have to go with the change in the “nowness” of instruction, and reflect upon their own effectiveness to make their teaching fit modern standards (Dexter & Anderson 1999, 2). In their study about teachers’ use of computers in their instruction, and their perception of the changes thus introduced in existent classroom practices, Dexter and Anderson quote one teacher who exemplifies the general attitude of all teachers interviewed by stating that computers are not driving, but facilitating the changes she makes: “It is not like there is a written curriculum for the computer. We kind of put it together as we go along based on the needs of the students. Like I said, we try and connect it as much as possible to what is happening in the classroom.” (Dexter & Anderson 1999, 9)

Putting it together according to the needs of the students is also the aim of the present study about teaching grammar courses by using computer-assisted language learning (C.A.L.L.) in the form of WebQuests, blogs, online survey builders, etc. There are, however, characteristics of C.A.L.L. that Dexter and colleague do not mention – the immanent dangers, such as limited on-task supervision, the proneness to use Internet lingo in academic settings, plagiarism, and the leaving-behind of students who are less fortunate than the excelling tech geeks, such as the case study of an Amish student who had just learned what a computer was, but not yet how to use its higher functions. Kuang-wu Lee (2000) analyzes in detail the barriers of C.A.L.L., namely the financial obstacles, the availability of soft- and hardware, the technical and theoretical knowledge, and the acceptance of the technology. Despite all those adversaries, Lee concludes that what matters is not the technology, but how we use it, and states that

[c]omputers can/will never substitute teachers but they offer new opportunities for better language practice. They may actually make the process of language learning significantly richer and play a key role in the reform of a country's educational system. The next generation of students will feel a lot more confident with information technology than we do. As a result, they will also be able to use the Internet to communicate more effectively, practice language skills more thoroughly and solve language learning problems more easily. (Lee 2000, n.p.)

While Lee – who tackles the subject from the point of view of foreign language learning – discusses computer technology in general, Zheng and colleagues (2004) go more into detail by describing the perceptions of WebQuests by higher-education learners. After a definition of the role of WebQuests and quotes of what they ought not to be, such as “a panacea for all manner of educational ills,” and “merely worksheets with URLs” (quoted in Zheng et al. 2004, 41), the researchers mention the key features of WebQuests: a) critical thinking, b) knowledge application,c) social skills, d) scaffolded learning. Their survey of the perceptions of males and females of their WebQuest learning led to the results that males and females both have equal opportunities to learn from scaffolding (including the components of content comprehension, learning, and goal attainment) as embedded in WebQuests without any gender preferences, and can perform equally well in cooperative learning. Although the researchers stress the difference between the old construct of WebQuests focusing on knowledge application and critical thinking versus the new one of constructivist problem solving, they underline that there cannot be uniform standards for WebQuests established, since they display a wide range of quality and design (Zheng et al. 2004, 48). The present study is going to analyze university students’ perception of their grammar learning through WebQuests and other computer-assisted functionalities, hopefully coming to some general statements where this C.A.L.L. in literacy will lead us in the future.