Tales from a Loud Librarian

Every student finished the lesson with a bibliography that looked like this one above Last week, I described how we began the research process with 6th graders by learning how to create a bibliography. I was happy with that lesson, but I felt concerned that the students did not really understand the elements that went into making each citation. I taught them how to create a citation using Easybib. This meant that they did not have to find the author, title, publisher, etc. because it was done automatically for them. I had an idea to go one step further with bibliographies to make sure that the students understood the process that we had done the week before.  I took resources that the students had used to create their own bibliography with four citations and created a sample with eight citations. The teachers posted the document in Word on their online agendas so the students could each open a document that they could edit. The first thing I did was talk about MLA forma...

The middle school English language arts' teachers and I have been really working on developing our method for teaching the research process over the last few years. When the sixth graders arrive at Patrick Taylor, we know that they have not had a lot of experience writing research papers. They may have written a report in fifth grade but not much more, and I am hoping with the Common Core standards that this will change over time. For now, the students need to be taken step by step through the process with the teachers and myself holding their hands.  Using the ISBN on the book to create the citation in Easybib As I reflected over the steps that we took last year to teach the process, I decided to change my tack and begin with the bibliography. Our school pays for each student to have an Easybib account. We thought that by starting with the bibliography, we would be breaking down the process to the smallest bits and make it easier for the students to handle. The 6th gr...

I like to post weekly, but all I have is a very short note. I saw a small group of 7th graders today. The assignment is a mini-research paper to correlate with their reading of the novel,  Flush  by Carl Hiaasen. I put together a set of 7 task cards for them to use to begin their research for this assignment. They were given specific resources both print and electronic to use to find information on water quality and water pollution. Once they found their sources of information, the students had to create a citation for each source in Easybib . I thought this would be simple for them. All of the students had experience with the databases and using Easybib. It did not go as well as I would have liked. First, the students did not follow the steps on the task cards. Not following directions is often a big problem with students. So I went back to my task cards and at a teacher's suggestion, I divided each task into steps. You can find my task cards here .