I’m an English teacher who is teaching 10th and 11th grade this year. For the first time, I have a large number of IEP students with a wide variety of special needs. I would be grateful for any tips or suggestions for teaching research papers to my students. Teachers who have done this in previous years have not been successful with it, but as it is part of our required curriculum, I would like to be able to help my students to achieve.
Thanks so much.
Re: Teaching Research Paper
I’ve seen it done successfully by honing in on the specific skills and very gradually increasing the amount of writing and reading required. Ihad an excellent semester class in it in eleventh grade. We started out with doing a very short “paper” with one source — I think mine came to two pages handwritten about cockroaches. But this was where she really started her drill on Sticking To The Main Idea. (Or was it the “thesis statement?” I forget — but terminology aside, her absolute rule was that your different topic sentences for each paragraph had to DIRECTLY support your main idea of the paper, and everything in a paragraph had to support the topic sentence.
The absolute key for success was that everything was broken down into small chunks and graded. Sources were due one day (I had to do the paper where we needed 8 sources on ST. Francis of Assisi because I didn’t remember ‘til 10 p.m. the night before… and since my brother had had an interest in the man, we had a bunch of books in the house…) 5 note cards were due… then 20 more… then … then the outline… this is how it’s done at the LD school where I taught too, with the added enforcement of keeping the kiddo after school to work on what he’s missed so he doesn’t get but so far behind.
A lot of attention was given to the process of figuring out the main idea in sentence form. We had to do outlines that way (we had to do parallel outlines, which I would NOT inflict on special needs kids :)). I remember wrestling with getting those main ideas and outlines. We also learned to make note cards with specific directions and that was graded. One page per note card — if you go to the next page, get a new card. That kept us from going on forever on one card. And we were schooled in paraphrasing instead of copying unless the quote was too delicious to waste. And I think she tossed a bit of grammar in there too, since I remember her favorite “example sentence” was “Whenever I see you, I throw up.” Since I had a fine handle on the grammar end, I don’t remember that stuff. I think I *wo9uld* focus on the organization of ideas rather than mechanics — or do one, or the other… otherwise it will be like those math classes where they go too fast through everything and end up learning nothing.
With LD kiddos one of the biggest problems is that they can’t read the stuff. Where I taught, it was SOP to set up a reading appointment during “extra help” period (study hall) and set up after school reading sessions too. It wasn’t a case of “gee, you let us know if you think you need this.” Yes, a kid could refuse it and sometimes they did, but we didn’t ask — we said “okay, when can you come see me with these books so we can read them and take notes?” THat way they could concentrate on the truly challenging parts of research — reading, comprehending, and putting ideas together in a paper.
By the way, at the School LIbrarians’ conference last week, I went to a session where it was disclosed that an incredible percentage of students honestly didn’t think they were really supposed to be putting their own interpretations (I don’t mean opinion, I mean assimilation of the information) into research — they really thought they were supposed to go gather information and present it. It helped me understand why they so often came up with “papers” that were cut and paste masterpieces that made almost no sense.
Re: Step Up to Writing
has a lot of good ideas in it. Available from http://www.epsbooks.com for $50 (you don’t need the whole kit). It has chapters on teaching organization of paragraphs (using paper folding techniques, for example), teaching 3-word notetaking, outlines, etc. all building up to writing research papers.
Mary
Writing
My son had a paper he had to write(7th gr.), not research, but it was done in steps, with graphic organizers included in his packet. Things like webbing, putting ideas in order, that kind of thing. They were given about 3 or 4 weeks, with different parts due each Friday. The actual writing(final draft) was done on lotus notes using the computers at school. I wrote research papers in high school and college without much instruction(lots of index cards) prior, I thought the method my son’s teacher was using would have been helpful to me when I was in high school. Back in the good ol’ days, the first one I wrote was in 11th grade, times have changed! I think along with the reading problems ld kids often have, organization is a big deal(organize your thoughts, your paragraphs, your paper). And as most can tell, I write here as I think, not particularly organized :o)
I think the real difficulty with IEPed students and research papers comes down to reading and writing skills. Sophisticated reading skills and sophisticated organizational skills are really necessary to successfully write a research paper and many of these kids won’t have them.
I’d do it in stages. (what kind of research paper are you writing?)
First, I’d have them pick a topic they feel they know a lot about. Skateboarding, eating, skiing, a certain tv show - whatever.
I’d have them write a paragraph about that topic. Check out their ability to know what a paragraph is. I always give a sample that I’ve written and I find it increases their success with any assignment if I had a teacher-generated sample of what I’m looking for.
Then I’d teach a lesson some concept - anything. The origins of baseball, the Civil War, the first antibiotic, Beethoven’s music. Anything you can successfully teach and then have them write a paragraph about that topic. That will free them from the need to read and the urge to just copy out of a book.
Next I’d move on to encyclopedia articles about unfamiliar topics. Have them look up something in an easy to read enclycopedia and write a paragraph. Then help them find the same topic in a different enclyopedia and then in a book. As the knowledge base hopefully grows, they should be able to add to their paragraph.
I find easy to organize topics are often the history of something. The history of tennis, the history of rock music.
What’s also easy to research is somebody’s life. Maybe have them write their paper about a famous person who did great good for the world.
I rarely if ever talk to kids about plaguerism up front as I find it scares them and shuts them down. The last thing I talk about is foot notes or end notes and then only if their reading and writing and organizational skills have brought us to write successful, if brief, papers with researched information.
Good luck.