Senior I-Search Project Information
RESUME EXAMPLES:
(For viewing, NOT PRINTING--it jams up the lab printer!)
Resume for high school student highlighting work & volunteer experience
Resume for high school student highlighting academics
Resume for high school student--basic
Template for Creating a Resume
(Normally I would NOT advise this--the whole point is to customize your resume for each job you apply for, but this one has a pretty good layout: it's attractive AND clear.)
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Welcome to your Senior I-Search Project resource page. I'll post all information about the project here--if you can't find something or have questions, feel free to email me.
Thanks,
Ms. Cochran-Keith
Q. What is the Senior I-Search Project and when are the deadlines?
A. Please refer to the overview below
An Overview of the I-Search Senior Project
The Paper:
The Senior Project paper is a eight-to-ten page, typewritten I-Search paper about a career that you are interested in. An I-Search paper is different from a research paper in that it does not prove a thesis. Instead, the paper tells the story of your search to find out information on a topic (both the successes and the failures), and it is written in first-person point of view. Students will gather information from three sources: interviews, observation (job shadow), and formal research. This paper will be written one section at a time, as each step in the process is completed. The four main parts of the paper are outlined below:
1. Background: why you chose the topic, what you already know, & what you want to know
2. Primary research: discussion/summary of (A) the 3 interviews & (B) the job shadow(s)
3. Secondary research: discussion/summary of research findings (at least 4 sources)
4. Reflection: how your understanding of the career changed, and what you’ll do next.
Appendices:
a) Bibliography
b) List of interview questions
c) Transcription of three most useful or insightful answers
Interviewing & Job Shadowing:
A key component of this project is the idea that information from primary sources (people) is sometimes more helpful than information from secondary sources (books, internet, etc). To that end, you will start your search by interviewing three people about your chosen career. After doing so, you will probably have a better idea of where you might fit in that industry, and ideally you’ve met someone doing what you think you want to do. At this point you will choose one or more people (does not have to be an interviewee) to job shadow, so that you can see what a typical day in that career looks like. The minimum requirement is ten hours, but of course you can do more if you like. You can also shadow more than one person if that would be helpful. You are allowed to miss one day of school for this project, but some of the shadowing will probably have to be done on your own time as most work days only last eight hours. You will be responsible for transportation. Before you shadow anyone, you must get their written permission and submit it to the school on the appropriate form. All locations must be pre-approved due to insurance issues. If you choose to miss a day of school, you must submit a field trip permission slip at least two days in advance. During this process you will need to keep a log of hours, which will be verified by your interviewees and job shadow host(s). You must log at least 15 hours, 10 of which must be from the job shadow.
Senior Boards:
During the second to last week of the year you will give speech (minimum 8 minutes) to a panel of five community members. Your speech, which will be accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, will give an overview of the project and address such topics as problems your project presented you, how you overcame them, and what you learned from the project. After a five minute question and answer period, the panel will fill out an evaluation sheet to assess the quality of your presentation. The highest and lowest score on the evaluation sheet are disregarded. Your score will be calculated by averaging the score of the three remaining evaluations sheets.