Learning about Information Literacy

This year, information literacy mini lessons started with a Kahoot game on Library digital collections. Playing in groups in always cool and engages Eighth graders in an investigation of library collections.

You would be surprised how much students remember and how much more they are ready to learn.

Grade 8 Research project

When you see students from Mr. Goury's 8th grade class, ask them how the minus operator changes Google query results.

These students finish the year on a high note practicing research skills while working on Time, Continuity, and Change projects. They use library digital collections and apply search techniques to find materials online to discover facts about their favorite topics.

In which way does the wordless language of emojis evolve? What is the future of travels through space? What makes NBA a global business? Will anime survive if manga becomes less popular?

Active learning instructional strategies prepare 8th graders for future research projects in High School!

 

Writing with John Coy

This week,  a writer John Coy is paying WBAIS a visit.

His workshops inspire Middle and High School students and teachers to write short stories and express their opinions.

Don't start with Introduction and hooks.

Once started, don't stop writing.

Don't think about writing reports. Instead, provide details and add dialogs.

The word 'revise' means to go back and look again. Revise, revise and revise again. Authors re-examine their texts without limits.

Perseverance and  patience are best author's friends.

Authors are used to be rejected. Don't give up, keep revising and improving your text.

Publishers don't provide detailed feedback as Language Arts teachers do. Authors follow their knowledge and intuition to address their imperfect writing. 

Five Features That Make Facts on File Today's Science My Favorite Sources

1. It's not very easy to find science sources that meet needs of Middle and High School and ELL students. Facts On File, Today's Science is a database of science news and encyclopedia articles written on the level that students can understand.

2. Today's Science connects the content that students learn in class with present-day discoveries in
Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, Environment, Medicine and Health, Psychology, and other areas of science.

3. Conversations with Scientists, Cartoons and Puzzles enrich and make reading engaging.

4. Visuals and the Read Aloud feature help students understand the text. Students can hear and repeat the correct pronunciation of difficult terminology. When needed, articles can be translated into students' native languages with a build-in the Google Translate function.

5.  The "Resources for Educators" section includes ideas and suggestions for assignments,  discussions, hands-on activities, and research.

Web search for Middle School students: choose right keywords for an adequate web site retrieval

http://searchenginewatch.com

Educators don't have a problem to describe  keywords as significant words or phrases that identify the topic of a research. We teach students to put keywords in a search bar of a search engine, catalog or a database. However, Middle School students often complain that they have too many results and it's hard to find adequate articles. Librarians provide young adults with more specific recommendations to help them find relevant information.

Librarians suggest:

• Before conducting a research, students make a list of questions they try to answer and collect information for. Examine these questions and identify keywords.
• Relevancy of retrieved web sites depends on what words students have inserted in the search bar and in what order. A keyword headache brings different searches from the results produced by the phrase my head hearts. A keyword dentist retrieves distinct results from those that come as a result for a search for a tooth doctor .
•  Before they start research, students should think either they need facts or opinion and either they need to provide a variety of points of view. 
•  Are they collecting statistics, lesson plans, discussions?
•  Remind the students how search engines work: Web pages are tagged and described in metadata to make them searchable by search engines. If the words chosen by a researcher don't bring helpful web sites, we suggest that students use synonyms and related words .
• General keywords bring a great number of web sites while focused keywords will limit the number of websites, sometimes more than it is desired. Special terminology  retrieves highly professional articles.Using both types of keywords in the search bar is the best way to find relevant information.
•   It is recommended to use 5-7 keywords in the search session. Google brings web sites that contain the most of the keywords entered. 

Hopefully, these tips will help your Middle School students find relevant information and grow as web detectives.

Paraphrasing, Summarising and Quoting

Paraphrasing, summarising and quoting are the three ways of presenting someone's ideas and phrases that Middle School students are often struggle with. To help students grasp the difference, Humanities teacher Mr. Sullivan and I, library media specialist conduct a purpose-built class activity.

Before we start a lesson on paraphrasing, summarising and quoting, six grade students are divided by groups. They brainstorm and  share their understanding in front of the class. Other students listen carefully, take notes and ask questions when the presentation is over.

Building an even clarer differentiation between the tools through a dialogue is the next step of student discovery. Students are paired to develop each concept through a conversation. We guide  student discussions by asking open questions.

Below are the results of the class discussions.

Quoting:

What? Quoting is an exact reproduction of spoken or written words. It's usually a short message that

supports and not replaces students' own ideas.
Why? Writers use quoting when the exact wording is the best way to convey a message.
How? The message should not be altered. Quotation marks are used in the beginning and at the end of the message.

Paraphrasing:

What? Paraphrasing is a way to express the original ideas in ones own way by using different words.
Why? It is done to support students' original ideas and/or provide evidence.

How? Paraphrasing doesn't make the original text shorter.
A correct way to paraphrase is

• to read the original text carefully and understand it. 
• Then, identify key words and main ideas and relationships between them as well as the author's attitude toward information you are paraphrasing. 
• When paraphrasing, change the grammar and sentence structure but keywords, main ideas and relationships between them keep the same. 
• Express the attitude the author has to treat the original text, that is confidence, doubt, criticism, or other.

Summarising
What? Summarising is a way to convey main ideas of the original text.
Why? Summarising is used to support main ideas of student writing or provide evidence to prove student thoughts.
How?

• To summarise, read the text, take notes and outline the main ideas. 
• Leave out details and examples.
• Close the text and rewrite notes in your own words.