We are fortunate to be living in a digital age. There is a plethora of information available which makes it easier for students to do research. However, with this wealth of information there comes a caveat that students should not use this information in a cut and paste fashion just to get the the pleasures of getting it done in a hurry.
The crux of all research is good notetaking and the careful culling of information. It may not be the rock and roll of research and doesn't have the kick of sex and drugs, but it will get you to where you want to go and even give you more bounce to the ounce without the problems of plagiarizing.
Graphic organizers, research documents, encyclopedia articles, web sites and rubrics.
Students will be given a citation page for a research paper about the life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature. They will also be given a document either as a Microsoft document if they are using computers, or as a hand-out.
They will begin a discussion about what they think are the important topics they would like to learn more about in Garcia Marquez's life (GM). Posssble topics they may come up with could possibly be: Early Life (Childhood), Professional Life (Writing Career), and Married Life (Family Life).
If the students are working with the first document on a computer with the Microsoft document they will be asked to highlight important information about his early life. After they have chosen important information from the documents they have been given about GM's early life they will either highlight or undeline the important information. They will then discuss why certain information was chosen and other information wasn't. Again they will discuss why some of the information was written down for note taking purposes. They will also discuss in groups of four how they hope to assess the document that each student has created. From this discussion they will create a checklist of information that should be included in thier written document about GM's early life. This checklist will be used to assess the document that they will write at home about GM's early life.
Students will use the same research documents and underline or highlight important information about GM's professional life as well as his family life.
Students will be able to take notes from the highlighted information about GM's professional as well as his family life.
Students will also be able to write informative essays from their notes about GM's professional life as well as his family life.
Students will be able to create a rubric (checklist) for evaluating their informative essays about GM's life.
Students will create an assessment tool with a checklist of information that should be included in any document they create. A writing rubric will be included for an assessment of their writing and following the rubric for creating this document.