I have had much success having my students do "I-Search" papers. The I-Search paper was developed by Ken Macrorie in a book he developed entitled "Searching Writing". The paper calls for students to do research on a topic they want to know more about: future careers, current events, problems they or family members have faced (i.e. abuse or divorce). The students start out by discussing what they want to know, why they want to know this, how much they think they know, what they need to know, and how they are going to learn what they need to know. They then do their research through the library, through the web, and through interviews. In their essays, they not only discuss what they learned, but how they learned it. In other words, their search for information is as much a part of the essay as the information itself. That is one reason this type of research is called "I-Search": much of the paper is a personal narrative of discovery written in first-person.
In addition to Macrorie's book, there are many good web sites covering the I-Search. Here are a couple you may wish to review:
The I-Search Paper
I-Search Paper Format Guide
The I-Search Paper: Sylvia Robins' Template
I-Search Diagram
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