Cynthia Mossman's "Using Plot Structure for Research Paper Teaching"

We are drawn to stories. The media knows this. On the six o'clock news, we are presented with the latest news "stories." Whether we are given the facts concerning the latest terrorist attack, the discovery of a new star, or a plea for a kidney donor from the desperate parents of a child, we hear the news in story form.

People around the globe transmit information to each other in the form of stories. Whether one is sitting under an acacia tree in Africa, listening to the trackers telling the best way to hunt a kudu, or in a New York penthouse hearing about the best stock market investments, people prefer to get the facts in story form.

We process information by creating stories. This concept is used in the movie industry. When two seemingly unrelated images are placed next to each other, our brains make a connection and we create meaning, or a story, to explain the relationship. Plot is the structure that allows us to process facts.

Robert McKee says in his book, Story:

Since our first ancestor stared into a fire of his own making and thought the thought, “I am,” human beings have seen the world and themselves in it [in the] classical [plot] design. The classical design is a model of memory and anticipation. When we thing back to the past, do we piece events together antistructured? . . . No. We collect and shape memories around an archplot to bring the past back vividly. ("Arch" pronounced "ark" as in archangel.) When we daydream about the future, is it antistructured? . . . No. We mold our fantasies and hopes into an archplot. Classical design displays the temporal, spatial, and causal patterns of human perception, outside which the mind rebels. (62)

Classic plot structure begins with a conflict, or a question in a static situation. With steady increments, tension is increased until a climax is reached. The climax is that situation, event or information that changes the world (or the subject) irreversibly. There is no going back. After the climax, there is a "denouement," or falling action, in which things settle back down to a new stasis, different from the former stasis.

The classical design plot structure according to McKee is not ethnocentric, but rather, a universal human way that factual information is understood. It is "timeless and transcultural, fundamental to every earthly society, civilized and primitive, reaching back through millenia of oral storytelling into the shadows of time" (45).

How can this knowledge help college instructors when they assign a research paper? Suppose we ask student writers to structure their research papers using the basic concepts found in the classical design for plot structure. Therefore, they choose a high point, or climax, for the focus of their research. Papers are then structured so that other information serves to heighten tension, or lead directly toward that climax. The results, or "falling action" show how the world or subject was changed, and how the return to a new stasis was accomplished. This method of presentation of facts and research can be found in popular news magazines and newspaper articles. We would therefore be asking the student to write a research paper as a plotted piece of writing.

Traditional Research Paper Organization

Some of the traditional ways of organizing the body of research papers have included the following:

1) Chronological listings, or historical order of facts and events.

2) Subject area categories.

3) One subject area divided into sub-categories or classifications.

Unfortunately, these traditional methods have often resulted in papers that list events and facts as "evidence" for the opening statement and as "proof" for the conclusion of the research paper. Little attention has been given to the structure of the body of the research paper.

In Active Voice, James Moffett discusses the research paper assignment. He asks the question, "What is determining the author's paragraphs and the order of the paragraphs?" (132). "Almost all book research that students are asked to do in school and college is on subjects assigned to them, the main purpose being either to force students to 'cover' certain material staked out in a course or to elicit evidence that they have done the required reading..."

Advantages of using plot to structure research papers:

1. To give students a focus for narrowing their topics.
2. To give students a focus for revision decisions.
3. To create a more readable/accessible final product.

Using plot structure puts more importance on the communicative aspect of the paper, thereby focusing more attention on the audience. With plot structure in mind, the student writer will have to choose more carefully which events/ facts to use and be more conscious of the ordering of these in the paper.

Pitfalls that a plotted paper should help to prevent are:

1. Plagiarism--since copying "facts" in the same order as they are found won't work.

2. Limited research--when students just write down the first facts they find and categorize them. More synthesis of material will be required in order for the facts to "make sense" in the plot structure framework.
3. Textbookeze" or the unsuccessful imitation of academic dialect without understanding or substance.

How does this structure differ from a persuasive research paper?

This type of paper differs from a persuasive research paper in that the student, while free to use the rhetorical modes, is not limited to a persuasive focus. The only necessary elements are that the facts are designed to lead to an interesting and exciting climax, with increasing tension or heightening levels of interest that build toward the climactic moment, or most important point of the paper.

This structure should come naturally to students, and hopefully will help with invention problems or the "staring at the blank page" syndrome. It asks students to sort through their research to find the most interesting or exciting point they want to make. This method is versatile, and the basic principles can be used in any subject area.

How does this work in practice?

Let's look at an example to understand how plot structure can be applied to a research paper writing task. For our purposes, let's assume that a student is researching Queen Elizabeth the First of England.

To start, the student would have to find several resources and become familiar with the life and times of Elizabeth I. Perhaps after reading about the queen and her world, the student might explore the reasons that Queen Elizabeth, in spite of having many suitors, refused marriage. The student might find the account of an incident when, during a discussion with her council, over a potential marriage to a Catholic Frenchman, she ended up in tears, when she realized that, for the well-being of England, she must remain single and not repeat the mistake her older sister, Mary, had made, by marrying an unpopular man and losing public favor. <http://www.tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/>; We'll suppose that the student chooses this moment in history as the most interesting fact that she has found in her research, and therefore, decides to use it as the climax of her paper.

Next, the student would order the facts and events using plot structure, so that they lead up to this moment in history. She would choose to show with increasing tension how the facts and circumstances led up to the moment in history when the queen decided not to marry the Duke of Alencon of France, and ultimately, not to marry at all. These would include the history of suitors trying to win Elizabeth's hand so that they could gain control of the throne, the numerous attempts on her life by enemies who challenged her right to the throne, the religious contests against her Protestantism by Catholic clergy,etc. The falling action might show how this decision prepared the way for her to rule unchallenged, and how the fallout was that she created the British Empire and colonized much of the known world as the Virgin Queen. <http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon45.html>; As a final indicator of the new stasis, the student might include one of Elizabeth's poems, for example:

On Monsieur's Departure

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,

I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,

Since from myself another self I turned.

<http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem797.html>;

This type of presentation would be far more interesting than a chronological list of events, for example, in Elizabeth Regina's life. It is also more interesting than hearing about categories or subject areas of Elizabethan England. There are no blocks of information on crops, or theaters, or the plagues. If this information were to be included, it would have to be part of the build toward Elizabeth's fateful meeting with her council, and subsequent decision, or be shown as part of the falling action after the meeting. This creates a logical ordering of information, and helps the student become more involved with his or her topic. It creates focus. There is no bland "overview" of Elizabethan England. There are no unattached "floating" facts that are so common in undergraduate research papers.

Using plot structure focuses attention on the communicative aspect of the writing, thereby making the information more easily accessible. During the research process, the student should find more enjoyment in finding facts and events in the subject area, and readers and writer will ultimately find more enjoyment in the "ride" from introduction to conclusion.

WORKS CITED

Brittania: America's Gatewy to the British Isles. Elizabeth I. May 2003. <http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon45.html>;

McKee, Robert. Story. New York: Harper, 1997.

Moffett, James. Active Voice. Upper Montclair, NJ: 1981.

RPO Editors, Dept. of English. "On Monsieur's Departure" by Elizabeth I. Representative Poetry Online. Toronto: Toronto University Press, May 2003. <http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem797.html>;

Tudor History.org. Elizabeth I. May 2003. <http:www.tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/>