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 #28

Our Independent Inquiry Projects
Are Taking Off!

"Movin' right along.
We're truly birds of a feather. We're in this together-
And we know where we're goin'."

-- Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear, from the song,
"Moving Right Along," in The Muppet Movie

Movin' right along!

The Muppets sang it first but I couldn't say it better. That's exactly where we are. Our independent inquiry projects are taking off, and we are definitely "in this together."

Thanks to Stephanie Harvey in Nonfiction Matters, we even "know where we're goin'." The "Research Time Line for First Inquiry Project" on page 195 tells us what to do next.
Week 3 -- Students commit to topic. Student, parents, and teacher sign contract. Teacher responds to student research questions and helps students generate further questions as needed. Students continue reading to find more information, coding and marking text with sticky notes. Teacher continues reading-strategy instruction and begins to demonstrate note-taking techniques. Generally, intermediate students have already had some practice in webbing, mapping, and listing. If not, now is the time to give them some.

Step 1: Students commit to a topic. Everyone picks his or her inquiry topic. Even though there are more than 30 questions, kids still find themselves having similar interests. Here's a list of the questions they choose:

Systems in Living Things

What is a living thing? Daniel T. and David

The Solar System and Beyond

How do astronomers learn about space? Daniel C.
What is the Solar System made of? Pedro, Juan, Rin, and Sammoon
How do the planets differ? Sokuntheer
What is the life cycle of a star? Helen and Jeannie
Is there other life in the Universe? Jonathan

Water on Earth

Where is Earth's water found? Rigoberto

Weather and Climate

Why does air move? Astrick, Yaritza, and Vanessa
What is air pressure? Loren, Carmen, Joanne, and Edgar
How can you stay safe during dangerous weather? Jose B. and Viviana
What causes the seasons? Michelle

Step 2: Student, parents, and teacher sign contract.

Why in the world should we have a contract for student projects? Why would we need to involve parents? To find answers to some of my questions, I start by asking the kids if they can think of some good reasons to sign a contract with their families and me. Here's their thinking.

Some Reasons to Have a Contract for Independent Inquiry Projects

For Parents:

To see if they will let you do the project.
To help them understand what you are doing.

For Students:

We should sign it because that means it's OK with us, too.
The research project might be fun.
It would make sure if you do your work.
Signing something makes you feel better about doing it because you feel more comfortable doing it.
Because we need to learn more about science and research.

For Teachers:

Is it OK with the teacher?
Because it's part of our class work.

So, with input from the kids, I compile a simple contract.

Step 3: Teacher responds to student research questions and helps students generate further questions as needed. As we work to refine our questions, I share a rubric for evaluating questioning with the kids. It comes from the Foundation for Comprehensive Early Literacy Learning which has recently branched out into extended literacy learning in grades 3 to 8.

Using this rubric to evaluate our questions is helping us learn more about asking questions. The rubric/scoring guide format really helps the kids to "visualize questioning."

Questioning Rubric

Score 1 - No questions/irrelevant questions.

Score 2 - Poses literal question(s).

Score 3 - Poses questions to clarify meaning.

Score 4 - Poses questions to enhance meaning of text (critical response; big idea), may explain how posing questions depends comprehension.

Score 5 - Uses questions to challenge the validity of print, author's stance/motive or point of view.

Step 4: Students continue reading to find more information, coding and marking text with sticky notes. Since the kid's questions are based on the science standards, we use the science textbooks first to see what the kids can find that relates to their questions. They keep track of their connections, revised and extended questions, and interesting facts on sticky notes. We put all their sticky notes on pages in their Nonfiction Writers Notebooks so that they will have them when they start writing. Next, we work with our librarian to access the school's resources. This includes articles from magazines, informational texts, and information from the Internet.

About searching on the Internet -- This time I'm using the website for the FOSS science kits from Lawrence Hall of Science. (The middle school modules are coming soon. Check here for more information.) It includes a vast number of modules, each with pictures, QuickTime movies, Internet sites, vocabulary, a list of books and software, etc. They have compiled Internet resources that correlate to the modules and the science standards. This saves time by helping the kids spend more time on the research and less time on "searching." Once they have exhausted this list, they can use Google and Ask Jeeves to find additional information.

Step 5: Teacher continues reading-strategy instruction and begins to demonstrate note-taking techniques. As the kids work, I continue to teach mini lessons for reading-strategies. Several of this year's journals talk extensively about how we do this.

Week #09 -- Our Adventures in Making Text-to-Text Connections
Week #10 -- eFieldtrips: Learning to Ask Good Questions
Week #11 -- Enhancing Comprehension: Learning to Visualize with Tableaux
Week #12 -- The Far Side of Inferring
Week #13 -- Frolicking with the Dolphins: We Build on Our Prior Knowledge

In addition to everything else, note-taking skills are important for success with Inquiry. Last year, I did extensive research to find different ways to help kids take notes. Writing Workshop Week 30: "Thematic Writing" - Our Note-Taking Crisis" talks about what I learned.

So, here's my plan for teaching kids to take notes:

First, I'll use the "listening" procedures to teach note-taking without copying.

Then, I'll use the Trash N Treasure system to teach them how to evaluate --"Does it answer the question?"

Finally, I'll use a T-Notes template to help them organize (questions on one side, facts on the other).

So, for right now, just like Kermit the Frog and Fossie Bear, we're "moving right along!
We're truly birds of a feather, we're in this together--And we know where we're goin'."

SEE Juli's Curriculum Map for Research Projects - Unit 5

SEE Juli's new Resource List for Teaching Content Literacy

Read next week's journal

Read last week's journal

Read Juli's backgrounder about her work

Back to Juli's journal index

Back to the Writing/Reading Workshop Index Page