*Key Lesson 1: Day 1

Lesson: What Is Research? An Introduction

Underlying Questions:

• What is research?
• What are the research modes we have at our fingertips
everyday?
• What will our cultural research unit look like for the next
few weeks?

Goals:

• To get students thinking “outside the box” when it

comes to research modes
• To familiarize students with basic procedures behind
research (inquiring, asking questions, letting your
findings guide subsequent research, etc.)
• To introduce students to the basics of the unit and allow
them to ask questions and think about what they’d like
to research

Rationale:

• Studies have shown that students feel a closer tie to

research and inquiry if it is based in a surrounding
community or field of interest (Borsheim, Petrone). By
using the school community as a way of examining
available research modes and sources, students will feel
 an deeper connection, and thus, and more authentic,
inquiry-based experience during their research
• An activity like this one, where students are moving
around the school in groups, is intended to get students
out of their chairs and put them in a “real-life”
investigative role. The intent is that hands-on,
interactive nature of the research activity will garner
more interest and enthusiasm among students.
• Lastly, by introducing and assigning proposals for
students to complete before they embark on their
research, they will be given an actual concrete,
published document that outlines their directions, goals,
and purposes. The proposal is intended to be a
document students look back on throughout the
research process to keep them on task and remind
them of what they are setting out to achieve. (Marble)

Assessments:

• “Be a Researcher In Your Own School” handout answers

• Research Proposal completed for the following day
• Contributions to class discussions

Objectives:

• Students will be able to discover the research sources

that exist all around them
• Students will be able to begin questioning what research
is and why we research
 • Students will be able to conduct themselves as
“investigative researchers” around their school,
conducting themselves maturely and with purpose
• Students will be able to examine and ask questions
about the upcoming unit and gain a greater
understanding oh what the next few weeks of class will
look like
• Students will be able to understand how proposals
function

MI Standards:

• 1.4.1; 1.4.2; 1.4.7

Tasks:

3 minutes: Attendance, housekeeping

5 minutes: Review; What is culture? How have we previously

defined “culture”? What else could we stand to know
about cultures? We will discuss these questions briefly
as a whole class. These concepts should be fresh in
students’ minds, as they’ve come right out of a
multicultural literature unit. This is just to recap what
they’ve learned and get them thinking again about
cultures, since this will be the topic of their research.

3 minutes: Transition: In School Research Activity (Anticipation

Activity)
We will transition with students getting the activity
handout. We will go over the directions briefly, but not
explain much about why we are doing it yet. This is
 meant to serve as an anticipation activity, which aims
at getting students to adjust their mindsets to our new
unit goals. Once students have the handout, they will be
broken into groups of four by counting off. Immediately
after, they will begin the activity. This activity is meant
to be less guided than most; the hope is that their lack
of specific guidelines and instruction leads to a more
inquiry-based experience of research

20 minutes: “Be a Researcher In Your Own School” activity;

students will comb the school searching for the
answer to one of the questions on the handout. They
will have only 20 minutes to see what they come up
with. At a specific time 20 minutes after they have been
dismissed, students will return to the classroom to share
and discuss their findings.

5 minutes: Discuss findings from activity; what did this activity

show us? We will discuss as a class what resources
students found to answer their questions and why these
resources worked. Students who could not sufficiently
answer their questions (or answer them at all) will be
expected to verbally hypothesize about why they were
unsuccessful and where they might have turned in order
to find what they were looking for

14 minutes: Go over Research Unit Overview handout and

Proposal handout. Students will now be informed as to
why we did this activity; we are entering a research
unit! The unit overview handouts will be distributed, and
gone over as a class. Students will have a chance to
ask questions about both the unit overall and the
 proposal sheet. They will be informed about possible
times to set up proposal conferences, and will complete
the proposal for homework.

Materials:

• “Be A Researcher …” Handout

• Research Unit Overview Handout
• Proposal Handout
• Writing Utensils

References:

• Borsheim, Carlin, and Robert Petrone. "Teaching The

Research Paper For Local Action." The English Journal
Mar. 2006: 78-83.

• Marble, Kathleen. Student Outlines/Proposals Idea.

DeWitt Public Schools. 2008

• Burke, Jim. The English Teacher’s Companion.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008. chs. 10, 11, 12, 13

• Smagorinsky, Peter. Teaching English By Design.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008. chs. 8, 9, 11, 14