I am a little behind in my reading of the list serv---still wanted to comment on research--I'm teaching 6th grade ELA this year and have struggled with research in my role as literacy coach over the past few years---I have introduced research to my 6th graders through historical fiction---we have been doing a genre study of historical fiction and will be writing historical fiction as an end result. This seems to have given the students an authentic purpose for researching and at the same time reading and using the expertise of the authors we are using as touch stone texts. As they write they discover more pieces they need to research---which has been excellent for motivation and search of information. We did general background building research to start and this generated interests in certain parts of time periods or historical events. We are still in the middle of this and "making it up as we go"---I have enjoyed every minute of it and has allowed so much authentic questioning about how, where, and why research. I started by using Jennifer Donnelly's researching of A Northern Light and also Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust.
>>> "Heather Poland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 4/26/2007 11:15 PM >>> Real research writing is authentic! There are lots of people who research topics every day and write about it. However, I do not think a report of information is very authentic. A Research Paper requires the researcher to form higher level questions that he/she wants to know about. They do research, then write about what they found and what they thought about the findings. Last year with my 8th graders, I did a research essay and I taught them how to form higher level questions to base their essays from. It was very successful. But, it really has to be taught as real research, and not just a regurgitation of facts. That is not research. On 4/26/07, Laurie Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > HI there, > > I am new to this listserv. I really need some feedback regarding an > issue. > > There has been some discussion regarding developing a unit of study around > research writing. We want to develop a unit of study between our social > studies/English curriculum that has the ss teacher focusing of the content > of a specific area and the Eng. teacher using writer's workshop to teach > research writing. This discussion is in it early stage and the is some > disagreement about whether research writing is "authentic" and should we > teach it at all. > > I would love to get some feedback. > > MKL > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org > > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive > -- - Heather "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." --Clarence Day "While the rhetoric is highly effective, remarkably little good evidence exists that there's any educational substance behind the accountability and testing movement." —Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds "When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding. When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding. " —Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literac yworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
