Researching in the 21st Century

Every year, for the first 4 years of teaching, I had to assign a research project to my students at the end of 2nd semester. It was kind of a right of passage. The students had practiced essay writing throughout the year, so they had to use their writing skills AND their new-found MLA format skills. In my opinion, this is just way too much for an end of the year activity. The kids are burned out, the teachers are burned out, and no one can concentrate on a task for more than 5 minutes.

Well, this year, I'm turning the tables. I started my JR LA and SOPH LA classes on their research projects right away (as I've explained in previous posts). At first, I was determined to have them do their bibliographies, note cards, and works cited pages by hand so they HAD TO learn MLA format. They'll probably have to identify things like "proper punctuation for the title of a novel in an MLA citation" on a Benchmark or other standardized test. However, most of my students are writing WAY below grade level, so I'm having to teach them basic essay format almost from scratch. (Some of them think that one sentence that stretches for 6 lines on a piece of paper counts as a paragraph!)

To cut down on the paperwork, while keeping my high expectations for their learning, I enlisted the help of our Media Center specialist and her new toy called Noodle Tools. http://www.noodletools.com/
This program is awesome! As the students do their article/website research through our Media Center databases, they can use Noodle Tools Bibliography to create a working bibliography online (by inputing author, title, publication, etc. information into 'fill in' boxes), then print a Works Cited page that is already in correct MLA format with indentions, italics, quotations, etc.

Furthermore, each source has a link to a blank Noodle Tool Note Card that the students fill in with the appropriate information plus any direct quotes they'd like to use or paraphrases they come up with. The program keeps the cards organized for them in a workspace, then prints them all neatly for the student when he or she is ready.

My students went to the computer lab for 3 days during my class (the first day was 1/2 orientation to the databases and Noodle Tools), and they've accomplished more in those 3 days than I have been able to do in a week with past classes who had to do everything by hand. Most of them have found their 2-3 sources, created and printed a bibliography, and created and printed note cards for each source. All of that in 3 days!

Tomorrow, I want them to take one more look at each source and highlight information that would be useful in their essay. Then, I want them to use their KWL, articles, and note cards to start outlining their essay. I've come up with an outline template that walks them through the different parts of an essay. Hopefully, that will cut down on questions like, "Ms. Greene, where does the thesis statement go?"

BTW: I forgot to mention last Friday that I gave the students 2 more ways to remember the proper format of an essay. For the visual learners, I drew a burger on the board, and explained that a good essay is like a good burger...it has a top bun (introduction), the insides to keep things interesting (body), and a bottom bun (conclusion). Without the stuff in the middle, it's not very interesting, and not very appealing. Without the bun, everything falls apart.
Then, for my kinesthetic learners, I gave small groups/pairs an essay that had been cut apart into hook, background info, thesis, 3 topic sentences, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The students had to reassemble the essay using what they already knew about essay format and clues from the topic sentences. Both of these worked very well!