Movement 1: From Spark to Stakes
Movement 1: From Spark to Stakes​
Postures: Personal Connection · Research Potential · Audience Awareness
Overview​
This first movement introduces the core postures that animate the RTS framework:
- Personal connection to research as lived experience
- Research potential as an exploration of tension and uncertainty
- Audience awareness as a bridge to rhetorical purpose
Together, these build the foundation for inquiry-driven communication. This movement is less about finding a topic and more about surfacing what's already stirring beneath the surface: a spark of curiosity, a puzzle worth pursuing, and the reason it matters.
Posture 1: Synthesizing A Personal Connection & Origin Story​
Core Question:
What drew you to this topic?
Pedagogical Purpose:
To surface students’ personal stake in the research process before engaging with external sources. This reorients research as a practice of agency.
Student Outcomes:
- Articulate a personal connection to their chosen topic
- Identify open curiosities or unresolved questions
- Recognize that personal investment meaningfully shapes inquiry
Reflection Prompts:
- What first pulled you toward this topic?
- Even if it was assigned, where do your experiences or interests meet the subject?
- What feels unresolved or confusing right now?
- Have you ever changed your mind about this topic?
- The Core Story: If you had to tell the story of your connection to this topic in three sentences, what would they be? (Beginning, middle, and end).
- The "Before" Picture: In one sentence, what was the biggest assumption you held about this topic before you began? How can you use this "before" picture to create a compelling opening?
- The Sonic Spark: What is the one sound (music, an effect, ambient noise) that could instantly transport a listener to the moment your curiosity began?
Format:
Freeform reflections entry
Tags: Curiosity, Memory, Personal story, Assumption
AI Role:
Socratic & reflective prompt generator
Future Notes:
Voice memo integration; metadata keyword pull from reflections
Posture 2: Synthesizing A Topic’s Research Potential & The Central Mystery​
Core Question:
What do you want to figure out?
Pedagogical Purpose:
Shifts attention from personal curiosity to intellectual tension. This posture invites complication, contradiction, and reframing rather than confirmation.
Student Outcomes:
- Name key questions to explore
- Identify assumptions or dominant narratives
- Recognize where gaps or contradictions exist
Reflection Prompts:
- What questions keep coming up?
- What assumptions does everyone seem to make about this issue?
- What has surprised you so far?
- Where have you changed your thinking?
- The Compelling Aspect: What has emerged as the most compelling puzzle, contradiction, or unresolved question at the heart of your research? This is the "mystery" you will invite your listener to solve with you.
- The Essential Voices: Who are the 2-3 essential "characters" or voices (e.g., key scholars, primary sources, community perspectives) that are necessary to tell this story? Why do they need to be "heard"?
- The Narrative Arc: What is the most surprising "plot twist" you've uncovered so far? How does that surprise change the direction of the story for a listener?
Format:
List or paragraph response
Tags: Tension, Assumption, Contradiction, Gap
AI Role:
Question rephraser, assumption challenger, or counterexample generator
Future Notes:
Library connection to scholarly debates; prompt expansion based on controversy indexes
Posture 3: Synthesizing Public Impact & A Listener's Journey​
Core Question:
Why does this topic matter to others?
Pedagogical Purpose:
Introduces rhetorical perspective-taking. Students begin to frame their work not just as discovery, but as communication with consequence and audience in mind.
Student Outcomes:
- Specify a likely audience
- Articulate the hoped-for effect or insight
Reflection Prompts:
- Who needs to hear this story?
- How would you explain this to a friend? A policymaker? A skeptical listener?
- What do you want your audience to walk away feeling, questioning, or reconsidering?
- The Ideal Listener: Now that you've reflected, describe your ideal listener again, but this time, focus on what you want them to be wondering about after your episode ends. What is your "call to inquiry"?
- The Sonic Identity: What is the overall "sonic texture" or mood of your podcast? Is it investigative and urgent, intimate and reflective, or something else entirely?
Format:
Longform reflection
Tags: Audience, Impact, Change, Conversation
AI Role:
Audience reminder; persona generator for perspective exercises
Future Notes:
Persona design interface; case study archive of public-facing scholarship
Interaction Design: Reflection Prompts & Deep Dives​
Movement 1 uses generative AI to scaffold reflective inquiry through a structured sequence of prompts. Based on the student’s initial topic, the AI generates two thoughtful questions in each of the following five categories (10 total per round). The student selects one, responds, and the process repeats across four rounds. Each response feeds into the next, allowing for a recursive, deepening conversation.
Ledger + Dashboard Integration​
Each question category represents a recurring line of inquiry that can be revisited later. From their personal dashboard, students can choose to re-enter a specific category — not just in Movement 1 but at any point in their project — and generate a new Socratic exchange. These are called Deep Dive Interactions and are logged in the student’s Inquiry Ledger for future synthesis and reflection.
Prompt Categories​
Each category is designed to cultivate a specific research disposition and communicative awareness, tied closely to podcast production values.
These categories are more than just UI labels. Each one corresponds to an elaborately crafted system prompt provided to the language model, shaping the kinds of follow-up questions the AI generates. These prompts can be fine-tuned to emphasize tone, conceptual depth, or relevance to podcast storytelling, offering a flexible architecture for inquiry that evolves as the project matures.
1. Personal Connection & Curiosity (Sparks of Inquiry)​
Goal:
Excavate the genuine, personal spark or intellectual itch that drives their specific engagement with the research topic.
Why it matters:
This authenticity forms the “why” behind the research. It makes the researcher relatable and the topic vital, not just academic. It’s about their lens.
2. Research Potential & Narrative Arc (Inquiry as Story)​
Goal:
Identify the evolving debates, tensions, and conceptual puzzles within the research and their own unique contribution.
Why it matters:
Transforms a list of findings into an intellectual journey. Brings narrative shape to evolving research questions.
3. Audience Awareness & Research Impact (Stakes and Significance)​
Goal:
Encourage consideration of the intended listener. What can the research do for this audience? How might it shift understanding or provoke action?
Why it matters:
Relevance matters. Framing research for others is what turns private curiosity into public contribution. It’s the “so what?” question in rhetorical form.
4. Unfolding Inquiry & Researcher's Journey (Puzzles and Unknowns)​
Goal:
Reflect on research as an evolving process with all the confusion, the messy but productive pivots, the moments of doubt and insight. (Not to be flattened, but acknowledged as a potential storyable component).
Why it matters:
Demystifies research. Makes the researcher visible as a thinking, wondering person and not just a voice of authority.
5. Synthesizing for the Listener (Listeners and Lens)​
Goal:
Help students translate complex ideas into clear, engaging, and memorable insights. How do you “land the plane”?
Why it matters:
The end of a podcast is often the beginning of someone else's change. This category focuses on rhetorical closure, key takeaways, and durable resonance.
Reflection Journal Companion​
For this first movement, you will complete a full Reflection Journal entry. This journal supports metacognition by capturing emotional, intellectual, and practical insights that evolve across time. Your responses here will help generate synthesis later in Movement 8.
Reflection Fields​
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What I Am Noticing What are you observing about your personal connection to the topic? What emotions, memories, or curiosities arise?
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What Feels Hard or Unsettled Are there aspects of the topic that feel uncomfortable, confusing, intimidating, or difficult to articulate? Where do you feel stuck?
-
What I Want to Carry Forward Identify ideas, questions, or tensions you want to keep alive as you move into deeper inquiry.
Philosophy: The Reflection Journal treats inquiry as a dynamic, embodied process. By making noticing and uncertainty visible, students build a richer, more sustainable relationship with knowledge-making.
Integration with RTS: Reflection Journal entries are attached to each movement and accumulate across time, creating a storied record of inquiry that supports final synthesis at Movement 8.
Technical Note: Reflections are saved relationally (user ID, movement number, field entries) via the LLM's API, and can be revisited, synthesized, or visualized later.
Black Box Micro-Engagement​
At the end of this movement, students complete a brief audio reflection to make their early curiosity audible — an act of public voice, even in its rawest form.
Your Task​
- Record a 30-second to 1-minute audio reflection describing your personal connection, some directions you’d like to pursue and ideas about your audience in relation to your research topic
- Use any available tool: phone, laptop mic, browser recorder
- Speak simply and honestly — no polish needed
- Submit the recording and then respond to the following:
Follow-Up Reflections​
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Personal Reflection: What tool did you use? What worked well? What was frustrating or surprising about recording your voice?
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Relational Reflection: Did you seek any outside help (e.g., tutorial, video, peer advice)? How did that support affect your process or confidence?
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Source Acknowledgment: Name any external tutorials, guides, or people you learned from.
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Organization Reflection: Where did you save your audio file? How did you name it? What system (if any) are you planning to use to organize your project materials?
🤖 AI Roles (Prototype Support)​
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Current AI Role | Socratic follow-up questions and synthesis of reflections |
| Adaptive Memory Mirror | Tracks recurring themes across reflections |
| Contradiction Miner | Surfaces missing voices or alternative framings |
| Audience Persona Generator | Generates archetypal listener profiles based on your topic |
More Reflection Prompts​
Personal Connection​
Why this topic? What drew you in?
Framing the Inquiry (Toward Researchable Questions)
- If you could ask one bold, risky, or unanswerable question about this topic, what would it be?
- What’s the difference between what you want to say and what you need to understand?
- What kind of knowledge would feel satisfying to uncover through your research?
- How do you want your listener or reader to feel after encountering your final piece?
- If your project could give voice to something unheard or unseen, what would that be?
- How might your background influence the types of questions you are drawn to?
- Are there perspectives you feel you lack when approaching this topic?
- Imagine explaining your interest in this topic to a friend — what would you emphasize?
- What's one thing you'd love to change about how this topic is generally perceived, based on your personal connection?
- How might sharing your personal connection make your eventual story more impactful for an audience?
Research Potential​
What do you want to figure out? Where are the gaps or tensions?
- Can you name a common debate or controversy related to your topic or interest?
- What do you already know — and what do you need to find out?
- What kind of question would still feel meaningful even if there’s no clear answer?
- What are you hoping this question will do — for you, for others, for the story you want to tell?
- Are there perspectives or communities you’ve overlooked?
- What keywords or concepts might guide your initial searches?
- What formats of information might be useful (data, interviews, archives, opinion)?
Audience & Impact​
Who else cares or should? What could change if this story is told well?
- If you could sit across from a member of your audience, what would you want them to say back to you after hearing your story?
- What kinds of emotional or cognitive shifts are you hoping to spark in your audience?
- Are you writing about people or with people?
- What voices or stories might you amplify to create bridges between your audience and your research?
- What would it mean to treat your audience as collaborators, not consumers?
- What do you hope lingers in someone’s mind after engaging with your work?
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