According to the Fairfield's DRSLs, all students will strive to

• Communicate Effectively
• Set, Plan, and Achieve Goals
• Follow Instructions to Solve Problems
• Produce a Quality Product
• Understand Personal and Social Wellness

Let's examine how these desired results of student learning apply to the research process:

• Communicate Effectively -- Most of what we study in an English class relates directly back to this DRSL. Reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and presenting are all forms of communication, and our main purpose in English class is to develop and improve these skills. The research paper you will write for this class is a piece of formal communication in which you will prove a thesis of your own design and use clear, coherent evidence and examples to support your argument. Simply put, the more effectively you communicate, the better your research paper will be.
  
  
• Set, Plan, and Achieve Goals -- Your goal for the research project is to develop, research, prove, and present a thesis. To complete this process, you will utilize the Big Six Information Literacy Process, which is really just a system for solving problems. Built into the Big Six are steps for setting, planning, and achieving goals to meet the terms of the final assignment, but they can also be applied generally to almost any problem, which brings us to...
  
  
• Follow Instructions to Solve Problems -- By following the instructions of the research assignment, the standards in the cross-curricular guide, and the steps in the Big Six Process, you will be illustrating this DRSL perfectly.
  
  
• Produce a Quality Product -- Your final research paper will be a quality product that will reflect not only what you have learned in the research process, but also your ability to communicate effectively in writing.
  
  
• Understand Personal and Social Wellness -- Because you will be researching a topic of personal interest, you will be required to look inside yourself and consider what things are important to you. In order to give voice to your writing and interest to your research, you have to consider how you feel about your topic as well as how others can best be persuaded to take action on your thesis. These require you to consider your place in the community or the world, and these are steps in the quest for personal and social wellness.