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Day #1
1. Before the class enters the room, arrange envelopes in four piles on the floor (or in an alternate location if space doesn’t permit). Place a couple of blank sheets of paper and a print-out of the front page of the New York Times (today’s date) on colored paper in an envelope on the top of one of the piles.
2. When the students arrive, break them into teams of two and give each team a handout. Explain to them that you’d like them to carefully read the directions on their own and print out a copy of the front page of the New York Times from the day that one of them was born from ProQuest. Explain that the first team to print it out and hand it to the teacher gets a prize.
3. Allow the students approximately 10 minutes to retrieve and print up the document. Each team must hand one in.
4. After the print-outs have been collected and the winning team is announced (prizes to be bestowed after class), ask them what they feel was the purpose of the task, i.e. “Why would I have you look this up?” After they answer, point out that the task called for them to perform an Advanced Search in an online database. They were required to use certain criteria to limit the search in order to obtain a particular document.
5. Ask for two volunteers—they can either be the winning team, or two students who are often moving and energetic. One is designated the searcher and the other is designated the database.
6. Call the students’ attention to the piles of envelopes. Explain that they represent all the documents in ProQuest—there are thousands upon thousands in many databases. Each pile/row represents a different newspaper included in Proquest.
7. On the board, create two lists: What do we know? and What don’t we know? (This list matches the one provided on their graphic organizer). Give the students 5 minutes to fill out their graphic organizers listing what they did and did not know about the information they were searching.
8. Ask the students: “What did we not know about what we were looking for?” Point out that they didn’t know who wrote any of the stories that day on the front page. Under What don’t we know?, write down “author”. You can also point out that they didn’t know what the articles were about, so under “author” you write “subject/keyword”. Discuss with them why this meant they couldn’t use either of these criteria to limit their search. Point out that all the envelopes are still piled on the floor/desk.
9. Ask the students what they did know. They knew the newspaper name, so under What do we know?, write “periodical title”. Have the “searcher” write “New York Times” on the top envelope of one of pile that includes the color copy from earlier. Then have the “database” remove all the other piles from the floor. Point out that by telling the database to search only one newspaper, it has limited the number of results you receive.
10. Ask the students what else they knew. Point out that they knew the exact date that they were looking for and then write “date” under “periodical title”. Have the “searcher” write today’s date on the same envelope under “New York Times”. Then have the “database” remove the rest of the envelopes from that pile. Point out that by entering a date (or you can enter a range of dates), you have further limited the number of results received.
11. Ask the students what else they knew. Point out that they knew they wanted the front page, or a particular view of the paper. Write “format/view” under “date” on the board. Have the “searcher” ask the “database” for the front page view of the paper. Inform the “database” that the front page view is a colored piece of paper for the purposed of the demonstration. Ask the “database” to unfold the sheet, show it to the class and then hand it to the “searcher”. Discuss how using specific criteria in a database search allows you to successfully limit the results. (The teacher can also use this opportunity to point out another way that the search was limited—by the use of a particular database as opposed to a search on the Internet at large.)
12. Review the additional online databases that are available to the students (names, topics covered and an overview of search features) and offer a brief review on keyword searching.
13. Review the homework handout and answer any questions.
Day #2
1. Let the class choose which assignment task they’d want to review as a class.
2. Create the same graph on the board as the other day and review the known and unknown search criteria for that task.
3. Leaving the graph on the board, collect the homework assignments.
4. Give the students 10 minutes to apply what they just reviewed to an actual database search for the requested information.
5. Walk around the classroom and guide the students’ work-offering suggestions.
6. Select 4 of the student-created searches from the homework assignment and give one to each group of four students (be sure not to provide a group a question created by one of its own members).
7. Provide the students with a new graphic organizer handout and ask them to write their search question on it.
8. Give the students an additional 15 minutes to engage in that search task and complete the graph handout.
9. Optional: After class, in grading the homework assignments, include known and unknown search criteria provided the group activity on the student’s assignment.
