Research Supervision: The Extended Essay

I took off my EE Coordinator’s hat this academic year to rest. Leading the research in the Extended Essay is no mean feat. However, I was given a student to supervise and scheduled library consultations with the seniors. So far, I am weirdly enjoying it.

It is a given that as librarian, I assist and provide reference and readers services. But facilitating the first three steps in the Guided Inquiry process opened up new learning for me too. I do not only provide services. I teach and facilitate the application of skills. Plus, I get to interact with students. Listening to them and knowing their thinking processes help me understand their attitude and behavior. More on these points in future posts.

For now, I wish to share specific feedback I gave to my student. She has a research question but, she needs clarity on how to approach the research work in general. Our first meeting was spent dissecting and unpacking her research question. After identifying variables, I asked her to do more research. She came back with results. So, I replied.

As I said in a previous email, you have found good sources. I commend you for knowing each papers’ purpose for your EE. Now, you need to identify specific information from each source so that you can use in your presentation and discussion of the child narrator. I suggest you do the following:

- take note of definitions, phrases, paragraphs and quotes as well as information you deem relevant for your topic in general. 

- as you take note, include the source for example:

Child narrators are unreliable when they are used arbitrarily to show themes that often reflect the bias of the author. (Page 14, Gagatiga, Child narrator in adult fiction. Crown, 2017)

- after reading and taking notes, pause to reflect on the process you went through. Doesn’t have to be long. Be aware of what you did and ask yourself, what are my discoveries about my content and topic, and about myself? Did I enjoy reading it? Did I feel confident? What are my doubts? What do I have now? What did I miss? These reflections will help you direct your next steps further on. 

Lastly, here is a tip. List down synonyms and antonyms for the word “reality”. Don’t limit yourself to literal meaning. Use context as well. For example, imagination / knowledge. Then, try the synonyms using this truncation in the search box of Google or databases:

Child+constructs+imagination

See what happens! 

I will post updates of our journey so visit the blog again soon!