And then there was none…

As of yesterday, when Ms. Elliott’s 7-2 Social Studies classes came to my classroom for their NoodleTools lesson, the number of 7th grade S.S. teachers who have yet to do this lesson with me had dropped to zero. That’s right – EVERY 7th grade S.S. teacher has helped their 7th graders become prepared for their 8th grade research reports by giving them time in the library with me to teach them important research skills. Thank you Ms. Kuhn (7-1), Mr. Ciccolella (7-2), Mr. Etscovitz (7-3) and Ms. Gillespie (7-4) for joining the “I did it!” parade of teachers with Ms. Elliott (7-2).

Ms. Elliott’s classes were in the midst of their Islam unit. As such, her lesson centered around having students research information on the Student Resource Center database which would help them to see how anti-Muslim bias has increased since the Sept. 11 attacks. They would use this information to create two online notecards to document what they found.

Thus, as part of this lesson, I taught students how to perform Advanced Keyword searching in the database, reminding them not to use complete sentences and, before citing, to ask themselves “what was it called before it was put onto the database” to determine what it is they will be citing. Was it a newspaper? A magazine? A book?, etc. I also reviewed how to create online citations, a skill which they learned in 6th grade. I also taught them how to create their online notecards using direct quotes and paraphrasing the information they chose to put into that notecard.

Congratulations to all 7th grade Social Studies classes. I trust you will use your newfound knowledge of research and NoodleTools online notecards to great levels in your upcoming 8th grade research reports.