Activity
1. Arrange with the librarian to use the library and/or computer
lab for the first two days of this class. When the
students come to class tell them what they will be
doing for the four days of this lesson and perhaps
what the homework on the last day will be.
2.
For two days allow the students to look up articles on
any
form of energy production that interests them, keeping
in mind
that they are trying to find articles of substance. Once
each student finds a suitable article he or she needs
to read it
thoroughly, taking notes about the main ideas and important
details. These will be organized into a summary. Then the
students need to use the criteria established in the
Explain Lesson
to examine how reliable their particular articles are. The
analysis may reveal that the particular article a student
has chosen is not as solid as he or she first thought.
This is
all right, since the purpose of the analysis is to highlight
how to find good information, so negative examples are also
helpful.
3.
The next step is for each student to create a brief presentation
in which the main ideas of the article
and important details
are described as well as the reliability analysis. This
presentation may take the form of a power point talk
using the computer
or a less high tech form such as a poster or an overhead
transparency. You should give the students time minimums
and maximums for
the presentations based on how many students are in your
class because all these presentations need to fit into
a two-day
span. Let them also know whether their work will be evaluated
based on the oral presentation alone or if a written component
also needs to be handed in.
4.
As each student presents his or her summary and analysis
to the class have the
other students note what criteria
were used to evaluate the reliability of the articles.
They should
note the different criteria used and perhaps how often
it was used.
5.
The students may wish to research the same form of energy
for the next learning cycle or they
may wish to
go in another
direction. To assist them, have the class create an
annotated bibliography of the articles presented for
this lesson.
Which ones were excellent sources? Perhaps the authors
of these
have written further articles or even books on the
topic. What publications
are listed in the works cited or bibliographies of
the reliable articles? These would also be valuable sources.
Closure
Go through the list of ways that the students employed to establish the reliability
of their articles. You may wish to post this list in your classroom to remind
the students of the criteria which they should be using as they do their research
both in English and their other classes for the rest of the quarter.
Embedded
Assessment
This lesson contains opportunities for both informal and
formal assessment. As students work in the library finding
their articles, reading them, and creating their presentations,
you can observe how well they are engaged and the amount
of work being completed. During the oral presentation you
can evaluate how detailed their summaries are and how methodical
their analysis of the reliability of the articles are.
You may wish to require a written document from each student
containing the text of their presentation as a further
measure of the accuracy and thoroughness of their work.
Homework
Students need
to decide which form of energy production interests them enough
that they would like to do a position paper on it. When they
come into the next class, which will be the engage lesson of
the next learning cycle, they will sign up for the form of
energy about which they will be writing papers.
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