Research Unit Theme:
Analyzing and synthesizing information from a variety of reliable sources, the student will prepare a research paper that is focused, organized, and polished.
Unit Skill:
True research requires the researcher to analyze and synthesize information from a variety of reliable sources.
Unit Essential Question:
Bloom's Taxonomy revised by Richard C. Overbaugh and Lynn Schultz, Old Dominion University
Mini-Lesson:
A. Having READ 1.1 and 1.2, "The Research Paper as a Form of Exploration" and The Research Paper as a Form of Communication," pages 3 - 5, students will discuss in class the purposes for completing research as outlined in the text: "As you use and scrupulously acknowledge sources, however, always remember that the main purpose of doing research is not to summarize the work of others but to assimilate and to build on it and to arrive at your own understanding of the subject."
B. Each student will share the process that he or she employed in Senior Project Class to select a general topic related to his/her senior project and that interests him/her. As a review, the teacher and students will read and discuss 1.3, "Selecting a Topic, pages 6 - 7.
C. Each student will tell how he or she began to focus the research topic using the "encyclopedia method," the "subtopic method," or the "question method."
D. Each student will share the key words used to investigate his/her research topic by going to an encyclopedia, or other reference source, to get an overview of the topic.
E. HOMEWORK: Students will begin now to make source cards for whatever sources he/she will use for information. Each student will begin now to compile a working bibliography. Read about this skill in 1.5, "Compiling a Working Bibliography," pages 31 - 33.
