Selecting appropriate reference sources for different questions

This lesson plan is to be used in connection with an English teacher's unit plan. The students are at the beginning of a two-week assignment where they are to plan vacations/field trips to famous authors' hometowns. They will have to do a lot of research about the authors as well as their hometowns. This lesson plan will provide the students with a general understanding of how different reference sources could help them in their research and then give them a chance to test that knowledge through a game.

Should be used within an English teacher's unit

50 minutes

1

• Handouts with brief descriptions of different reference sources
• Pulled reference sources to use as examples (e.g. biographies, dictionaries, literary criticism journals, travel magazines, encyclopedias, newspaper articles, etc.)
• Document containing the questions for the game
  
• DocCam or Overhead projector to broadcast the questions for the game
• A way to keep track of the teams' scores (e.g. pen/paper, white board/dry-erase marker, DocCam, etc.)
• A special treat for the winning team
  

1. Introduce students to the idea that some books/reference sources are better for locating certain information.  You could use the example that you wouldn't go looking for tires at a clothing store.
2. Hand out the handouts so the students can have something to refer to and take notes on during your lecture.
3. Teach the students the different basic information that can be found in different sources.
4. Explain to the students that they are now going to play a game that will test how well they understood the lesson.  
5. Divide the students into 4-5 groups.
6. Explain that you are going to give them a question about an author. Each team will race to find the best reference source in the library that would contain the answer. The point of the game is to determine which kind of source (biography, book of literary essays, dictionary, etc.) would most likely contain the best answer; the point is NOT to find the best answer.
7. Read and display each question separately and allow the teams time to locate the appropriate source(s).
8. At the end of the hour, the students on the team that has the most points get a special prize.