Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading/Writing Workshop Journal

A MiddleWeb Listserv Project

Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli also posts a weekly journal entry from her reading/writing classroom.

This year, Juli will focus on her efforts to integrate subject matter into her reading and writing workshop approach. In her first journal of the year, she explains the rationale behind this move and some of her thinking about how she hopes to accomplish this goal.

Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here. Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.

If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals, find out how here.

2003-04 Reading/Writing
Workshop Journal
Week #24

Nonfiction Investigations:
Using Research Skills in a Content Area


All around me, students are falling like "flies." There's some sort of virus/flu-like thing that is striking them down one by one. We're right in the middle of our unit of investigations, and suddenly everyone is sick. We've gone from 25 students to just 18 in a matter of days.

It's just not fair! But even though the lessons are planned and time is short, we still need to adapt to our changing circumstances. I feel like Dr. Lazarus in the movie, "Galaxy Quest," when, surrounded by aliens and facing impossible odds, he cried out, "Never give up! Never surrender!"

So on we go, a smaller contingent, but no less enthusiastic about our goal -- to pick a topic and conduct a small group investigation.

The title of this section of our investigations unit is "Using Research Skills in a Content Area." To facilitate students working together collaboratively, I've broken the group projects into seven parts.
Choosing a topic
Deciding on questions
Finding resources
Developing research tools
Techniques for research
Getting organized
Doing presentations

The book, Guiding Readers and Writers by Fountas and Pinnell (pages 429 to 438), is helping us get organized. Here's how our kids take on this new challenge.

--Choosing a topic

I give the kids six topics to choose from that match the science standards. Everyone makes his or her choice. The most popular topic is "The Solar System" with seven group members, a mix of boys and girls. Next is "The Rainforest" with five members, all boys. Third is "Volcanoes" with four members, all girls. The last group, "Weather," has two members, Jose and Edgar, who both want to have careers as TV weather forecasters. Two topics, "Oceans" and "The Brain," generate no interest -- at least for group projects. This demonstrates an important reason to give kids a choice. Aside from the fact that it differentiates the learning, you can never predict what everyone will choose.

--Deciding on questions

Kids use post-it notes to record their questions about their topics. In addition, their Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks are filled with their wonderings. (Interested in more information about Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks? See Journal #21, "Investigations: We Begin with a Nonfiction Writer's Notebook.")

Questions about "The Solar System":
Daniel T.--"How far is Pluto from the Earth?" "How hot is Venus?"

Rigo--"How close is the Sun to the first planet?" "How did all the planets come to the solar system?"

Vanessa--"Why do we have a new planet?" "What is the new planet's name?"

Viviana--"Why do we have a solar system?" "How do you find your way around the sky?"

Yaritza --"How did the solar system begin?" "Why is there not life on Jupiter?"

Jonathan--"Why is the sun bigger than the planets?" "Why is the moon in the solar system?"

Loren--"Does Pluto have a moon like the Earth?" "I wonder if Pluto has houses to live in?"

Questions about "The Rainforest":
Daniel C.--"How did the rainforest get its name?" "Why are there so many more different animals in the rainforest?"

David--"How many years does a piranha live?" "What makes the trees from the rainforest grow?"

Rin--"Where would you find the rainforest?" "How many animals does the rainforest have?"

Juan--"Why are the trees so big?" "What kinds of animals are there?"

Pedro--"How do the plants live in the rainforest?" "How dangerous are the animals?"

Questions about "Volcanoes":
Sammoon--"What are volcanoes made of?" "If volcanoes explode does smoke come out?"

Jeannie --"Why do volcanoes explode?" "Can you see volcanoes blow up?"

Michelle--"Why do we have volcanoes around the world?" Why are there 3 types of volcanoes (extinct, dormant, and active)?"

Helen-"Why is lava so hot?' "Why is lava red?"<close>
Questions about "Weather":
Edgar--"Why are clouds white?" "How do tornadoes start?"

Jose--"How does a storm begin?" "Where do storms go?"

--Finding resources

Once everyone has some questions and has done some wondering about their topic, we're off to the research part of our investigations. I'm limiting the number of resources for this group project to help them focus on the information they can learn about their topic rather than "all the bells and whistles."

This worked well for our class investigation about "Blood" (Journal #22). Everyone utilizes three of the same resources. They use the web site Kids Discover to gather some basic facts. Then they head into the grade level science text to find out what connections their topic has to their textbook. Finally, they use the CD-ROM World Book Encyclopedia to gather even more information and gain experience using a reference. After that, if they have more time, they can search for their topic on the Internet or look for information in other places.

Other resources kids use for their investigations:

--Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and thesauruses
--The school library
--Magazines and newspapers
--Web site addresses ( http://www.howstuffworks.com and http://www.brainpop.com ).

This is not the ultimate list of resources, but we've had better luck with research when we limit our choices and avoid a "the sky's the limit" mentality.

--Developing research tools

Our Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks serve an important function as research tools for our group investigations. Students also have a file folder to help organize their "materials."

Additional tools to aid their research include:

--Computers
--The Internet
--Word processing software
--Highlighters and post-it notes
--Clipboards
--A variety of paper including graph paper
--Chart paper, transparencies, and markers

The purpose of all of these "tools" is to facilitate the research. Somehow having this "stuff" just seems to help the kids learn more. When I asked one of the kids if he thought that post-its and highlighters made him smarter, he answered, "Of course not! But they make me want to work harder." Pretty smart kid!

--Techniques for research

To give students a more authentic experience as investigators, I include a choice of ways for them to obtain information from both primary and secondary sources. I'm especially interested in encouraging them to try out new ways of accessing primary sources. On page 435 in Guiding Readers and Writers, there's a list of suggestions for ways to help them "develop a wide range of research techniques."

We're trying out some of these techniques to see how the kids respond and how they manage the information they gather. They try:

--Interviewing
--Creating and administering questionnaires
--Note taking
--Viewing or listening to CD-ROMs, videotapes, and audiotapes
--Searching the Internet
--Going to museums or visiting their websites
--Conducting direct research

And so, even though this process of investigating is kind of messy and doesn't have a guaranteed outcome, it seems that the kids are learning about their topics, how to work together, and what it means to be an "investigator." The final step will be their presentations.

That is what I can hardly wait to see. They will bring their investigations full circle by teaching others, which is the highest form of learning.

SEE Juli's Curriculum Map for Investigations - Unit Four

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