Every fall the freshman history teachers assign an research project to introduce students to research skills and tools they will need at the high school. At the same time, the same students were writing a paper for English class. Last year we combined these assignments in to an interdisciplinary research project. Students are asked to choose a revolution and answer the question "What causes a revolution?" They are to find causes and evidence for each cause (the number of causes and the amount of evidence required depends on the level of the class).
The project requires close collaboration with the school librarian (me). One of the things we noticed during last fall's work with students was that students become frustrated with all tools they are learning for the first time.
This year we dedicated more in class time for students to complete their research. Each block the students had specific tasks and tools they were to use. This allowed plenty of opportunities for students to ask questions and request help from us. Note: our blocks are 80 minutes and we have an A/B rotation.
We began the unit in English class on the third day of school (but in the blog I will refer to it as Day 1 of project). We have two freshman English teachers and 3 freshman World History teachers so there were some blocks that where I combined and taught two classes together to keep everyone on the same timeline.
At the end I asked student to reflect on the process to find out what they learned, what they would do differently and what I could do differently. Most students were comfortable with the tools and thought our timeline and ability to work in class with teacher support if needed was beneficial. Some students stated they learned not to procrastinate and to spend more time pre-researching before committing to a research topic to ensure they could find enough relevant and readable information.
It was an absolutely crazy busy 16 days. Was it worth it? YES! It was absolutely worth it knowing we were setting students up for research success! I am so lucky I have so many teachers who are eager and willing to work collaboratively with me.
Below is my teaching timeline (direct link to Doc), the Student Prompt & Research Process, and the English & History Rubrics.
Student Prompt & Research Process: (given to students)
RUBRICS for ENGLISH & HISTORY
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STUDENT WORK SAMPLES
Student 1
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Student 2
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