Unfortunately, I had more people interested in what I found out than in
answer to my question. Below is what I received. I guess my next question
would be do any of you have any wonderful lesson ideas or websites that
would assist in the research process? If you do I would love to hear more
about them.
Thanks for you help,
Hits:
I saw your post on LM_Net, Dawn, and thought you might be able to use this
resource that I created for ProQuest as part of my consultant
responsibilities. It's about the most neglected process in Information
Literacy--analysis, synthesis, writing, reporting/presentation. Its focus is
creating meaningful research topics that are linked to essential questions
for critical thinking. It includes unique and practical models for reporting
inquiry-based activities called mini-research. Primarily it is designed to
help librarians help teachers because they are the ones who make the
research assignments engaging and effective or stale and plagiarism
inviting.
I hope you find this resource useful and adaptable for your purposes.
http://www.proquestk12.com/lsm/pqelib/pdfs/antiplagguide.pdf
Janetka, Carl
*****
I teach a wheel class to 7th grade. Another teacher and myself split the
6week course. I teach Information Skills for three weeks and then we swap.
We split the class into boys and girls. The first two weeks are spent
teaching how to use the databases, turbo tools and bibliography. The last
week they do research, bibliography and present the info in a powerpoint.
I would be interested in hearing what others are doing. Hope this helps
Martha Smith
*****
I have some stuff that I use from this site:
http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/ that is pretty good.
Bev Nelson
*****
I teach a one day a week class for eighth graders that lasts for the year.
I do work very closely with the eighth grade teachers though as this course
grew out of a collaboration for an 8th grade research paper. This is our
third year doing the paper and the idea for the class grew from this
project. I use the first semester to introduce the bits of the research
process beginning with where ideas come from and then moving into a step by
step intro to research. I confess that I don't have a syllabus. Most of
this was done on the fly, making it up as I went along! I used a variety
of sources for ideas and activities. One activity that I really had fun
with was bringing in a box of old photographs that I came across cleaning
out an obscure library closet. The photos are very unique and old-timey. I
gave each student a photo and they had to make inferences about the subjects
of the photo, the location and date of the photo. Then they had a creative
writing assignment to describe the people and what had happened just before
the pic and what happened just after. They also had to write about
something they wanted to know more about from the picture. This activity
was to show them that ideas can come from anywhere. When brainstorming a
topic no source of information is insignificant. We did infoquests (see
book below). I modified some of the activities so that we used exclusively
print resources, internet resources, or database resources so that they had
exposure to all mediums. We also spent time on learning the big 6 but I
don't feel like I do that very successfully. I'd love to see any examples
that you come across! I think it is a really worthwhile idea to pursue.
I'd love to have a mandatory semester class for my freshmen! Lisa
Guided Research in Middle School by LaDawna Harrington isbn #1586832212; The
Thoughtful Researcher by Virginia Rankin isbn#1563086980; Practical Steps to
the Research Process for Middle School by Deborah B. Stanley isbn#
1563087634; Turning Kids on to Research by Ruth V. Small isbn#1563087820; &
InfoQuest by Peggy Milam isbn# 1586830228. I really enjoy having the class.
The third quarter was devoted to doing the actual research project. 4
quarter we were going to do some blogging or creating a wiki but with
various other activities our time together is significantly curtailed so I
am supporting the English curriculum by showing The Odyssey which they are
reading and then doing an insults & compliments activity for Shakespearian
language when they begin Romeo & Juliet. I work very closely with the
English and Science teacher. It has been a good experience. I hope we'll
be able to continue it next year but some of our staff is changing...
Lisa Nocita, LMS
*****
The Concord Review
National Writing Board
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes
TCR Institute
Varsity Academics®
The Concord Review
Since 1987, The Concord Review, a quarterly academic journal, has
published 69 issues with 759 high school history research papers by students
from 44 states and 34 other countries. Essays of around 5,500 words, with
(Turabian) endnotes and bibliography, on any historical topic (ancient or
modern, domestic or foreign), may be submitted, with a completed copy of the
Form to Accompany Essays, and a check for $40 made out to The Concord
Review, to: The Concord Review, 730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24, Sudbury,
Massachusetts 01776. We publish about 8% of the essays we receive. William
R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions at Harvard College, has said: “We have
been very happy to have reprints of essays published in The Concord Review,
submitted by a number of our applicants over the years, to add to the
information we consider in making admission decisions [83 of our authors
have gone to Harvard]…All of us here in the Admissions Office are big fans
of The Concord Review.”
Many of our authors have sent reprints of their papers with their
college application materials, and they have gone on to Berkeley(6),
Brown(21), Columbia(14), Cornell(12), Dartmouth(10), Harvard(83),
Oxford(10), Pennsylvania(15), Princeton(44), Stanford(26), Yale(64), and a
number of other fine institutions, including Amherst, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr,
Caltech, Cambridge, Chicago, McGill, MIT, Trinity, Wellesley, and Williams.
National Writing Board
The National Writing Board, founded in 1998, has now given an
independent, unbiased assessment of high school history research papers from
31 states, and sent each author a three-page report, with scores and
comments from two Readers, which she/he has asked us to send to college
admissions officers (at 75 colleges so far), or simply could use as feedback
on one of her/his best history research papers. Papers of two lengths—around
2,000 words, or around 5,000 words—with (Chicago-style) endnotes and
bibliography, may be submitted, with a notarized Submission Form and a check
for $200, made out to the National Writing Board, to: the National Writing
Board, 730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776. [We
spend more than three hours on each paper.] We have a fee waiver for those
granted a fee waiver by the College Board. The following (39) colleges and
universities now endorse this independent assessment service for academic
writing: Amherst, Boston University, Bowdoin, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont
McKenna, Colgate, Connecticut College, Cooper Union, Dartmouth, Duke,
Eckerd, Emory, George Mason, Georgetown, Hamilton, Harvard, Haverford,
Illinois Wesleyan, Lafayette, Lehigh, Michigan, Middlebury, Northwestern,
Notre Dame, Pitzer, Princeton, Reed, Richmond, Sarah Lawrence, Shimer,
Smith, Spelman, Stanford, Trinity (CT), Tufts, the University of Virginia,
Washington and Lee, Williams, and Yale.
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes
The Emerson Prizes have been awarded to 51 students published in The
Concord Review who have shown outstanding academic promise in history at the
high school level since 1995. The twelfth annual award ceremony was hosted
by The Governor’s Academy on April 23, 2006. The laureates this 13th year
[2007] were from Hong Kong, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Toronto, and
Washington, DC. Past laureates have come from Alabama, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Czechoslovakia, Florida, Illinois, Japan, Louisiana, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Zealand, Ontario,
Russia, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington State.
TCR Institute
The TCR Institute, since 2002 the only U.S. think tank focused on
student academic work at the high school level, has published a study of the
state of the history research paper in U.S. public high schools. The study
found that the majority of teachers say they don’t have the time to assign
and grade such papers, so 81% never assign a 5,000-word research paper and
62% never assign even a 3,000-word term paper. We plan a study of the
assignment of complete nonfiction books in U.S. public high schools, and we
have had a number of articles published, in Education Week, the New Mexico
Journal of Reading, Knowledge Quest, the New York Sun, School Reform News,
EducationNews.org, History Matters!, Edspresso, Gifted Education
International (UK), Pope Center’s Clarion Call, Historically Speaking,
Education Matters, New Media News, History News Network, Teachers College
Record, and Educational Leadership.
http://www.tcr.org
For a subscription, send a check for $40 for The Concord Review, to: TCR
Subscriptions, P.O. Box 476, Canton, MA 02021. Class sets of 26 copies or
more receive a 40% discount. The two different submission forms for The
Concord Review and the National Writing Board may each be found on our
website, which has had more than 357,000 visitors, and since 1997 has been
mirrored on a server in Singapore for the use of history teachers in Asia.
This site also has 60 sample essays, including all of the Ralph Waldo
Emerson Prize winners from the last twelve years. If you have questions, log
on and leave an email for Will Fitzhugh at fitzhugh@tcr.org, or call (800)
331-5007.
David McCullough wrote: “I very much like and support what you’re doing
with The Concord Review. It’s original, important, and greatly needed, now
more than ever, with the problem of historic illiteracy growing steadily
worse among the high school generation nearly everywhere in the country.”
The late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Historian, said: “The Concord
Review offers young people a unique incentive to think and write carefully
and well…The Concord Review inspires and honors historical literacy. It
should be in every high school in the land.”
[Varsity Academics® is a registered trademark of The Concord Review, Inc.]
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
Thanks again for your help,
Dawn VanLerberghe
Librarian
Baraga Area Schoosl
Baraga, MI 49908
dlvl_02@hotmail.com
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