Teaching the
English/Language ArtsUnit
Topic Choice and Search Strategy
Competencies Addressed
- Student knows when to use reference materials
- Student knows when to use books, magazines, WWW
- Student uses keywords and topic headings
Topic Choice and Search Strategy Lesson Overview
Beginning a research project can be daunting. By using the strategies in these lessons, students will choose a topic and develop a strategy for searching for information.
During the course of these lessons students will choose a scenario from those listed at the end of the Participation in Government unit and develop a search strategy for finding information for that topic.
Librarian will model a search strategy for a topic with which students are familiar. Discussion will include:
- Types of resources available to students and the rationale for using each
- Specialized encyclopedias
- Reference books
- Books
- eBooks
- Periodicals (databases)
- Subject databases
- Web sites
- Formulate a thesis statement and essential questions
- Select key words and brainstorm similar terms
- Demonstrate special tactics
- Quotation marks
- Boolean
- Truncation
Resources for teaching this lesson: