How to Get Funding to Read The Hunger Games
by Audrey Kreiser ’17
Secondary English Education
I applied for a summer research grant at the suggestion of one of my Honors College professors. My final for Professor Andrew Barnaby’s “Art of Literary Adaptation” class was an adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story featuring a female detective. In my brainstorming session with Professor Barnaby, I talked about my theory of Sherlock Holmes adaptations: there are dozens of them, set in different countries and eras, adapted for television and film, with detectives ranging from abrasive to endearing to obsessive, but all of them are men. My theory is this: many of the newer Sherlock Holmeses are brilliant but have few social graces, which is not conducive to a likeable female protagonist for many audiences.
After I was done lamenting about growing up with Dexter’s Laboratory, Jimmy Neutron, Monk, Psych, House, and Artemis Fowl, Professor Barnaby suggested I write about this as part of a summer research project. He pointed out that I could write a creative piece– like a whole series of my lady-Sherlock-Holmes stories– or a more research-driven piece about representation and identity in young adult fiction.
Even though I’ve read hundreds of pages of educational research, I’d never thought of doing research myself. My major, secondary English education, is more like a pre-professional program, and though I have several friends working on research with their professors, they’re all in hard science programs. But Professor Barnaby’s suggestion seemed earnest, and he offered to be my advisor, so I figured I’d give it the old college try. Within a few months, my application to the Summer Research Award was complete and turned into the Office of Undergraduate, which is conveniently located in U-Heights North, two flights down from my dorm room.
Though Professor Barnaby pointed out that creative works are viable for the grant (and that the OUR would like to see more applications from students in the humanities and professions in general), I chose a slightly different route: designing a class for teacher education students about young adult literature and its impact on adolescent identity development. I’ll boost the transparency of this blog post by quoting from my application:
My goal is to create a hypothetical semester-long college course about adolescent literature for teacher education students. After conducting the relevant research (reading both critical texts and numerous young adult novels), I will then create a syllabus for the course, including a three-unit overview, a list of reading and viewing materials, a packet of supplemental readings, a list of assignments, and sample papers responding to those assignments.
Some of my work will be reading critical work about adolescent identity development; some of it will be interviews with my professors who teach classes about adolescent development and race and language in education; some of it will be planning, writing, and revising my first syllabus; and some of it will be sitting on North Beach reading young adult novels!
Undergraduate research grants are a great deal all around. The Office of Undergraduate Research wants to help students explore what they’re passionate about; students want experience conducting research on their own or under the guidance of primary investigators; and, of course, everyone wants to pay their rent and still be able to buy Ben and Jerry’s sometimes. There were nineteen other students who received the same award I did, and there are more than a dozen similar grants for things like study abroad, career development, unpaid internships, community service work, Honors College thesis research, environmental research, et cetera. Even for students outside the sciences, there are tons of opportunities for learning more about what interests you, what you love doing. (The wonderful people at the OUR can also help you find funding opportunities based on your interests– I think they’re actually wizards.)