CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.7

Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

Strategy: Pick it apart (Ramsey)

Detailed Description: The focus is to ask questions to generate ideas. Asking these questions will give the students clear direction with a research question and teach them how to ask focused questions.

Practical Application: Students will ask questions such as “Why?” “How?” “So what?” in order to compare and contrast, provide cause and effect, understand a process, identify problems and find solutions, and classify things.

TRAP: These strategies are featured on the University of North Alabama website. They were updated in November, 2012.

Buttram, Cayla, David MacMillan, and Dr. R.T. Koch, Jr. “Strategies for Narrowing a Research Question.” University of North Alabama in una.org. Retrieved from https://www.una.edu/writingcenter/docs/Writing-Resources/Strategies%20for%20Narrowing%20a%20Research%20Question.pdf.

Strategy: One Minute Papers (Chiles)

Detailed Description: One-minute papers are used to promote and foster critical thinking skills. They are usually the response to 1 to 2 open-ended questions that usually do not have one correct answer. Students are asked these questions in the hopes that they will use what they already know and scaffold to new observations and conclusions for themselves.

Practical Application: Students will have a specific project that they are supposed to research. At the beginning of the process, once students have received their topic, they would do a one minute paper on what they know about the topic. Since students have to write for a minute nonstop, and they more than likely will not know much about the topic, they can also spend this time writing down what they are trying to find out through their research. Other things they can write about include: what information they need to write this paper, what they don’t know about this topic, questions that they have and questions that could arise as they are researching. This gives students an impromptu beginning to their research process that they can expand on as they work.

TRAP:  This article was found on edutopia.org. It was written in late 2013 and it cites references from “Classroom Assessment Techniques: a handbook for college teachers” written by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross. The purpose of this article is to educate teachers on a method that furthers design thinking and literacy intervention.

Nahornick, Ashley. "One-Minute Papers: A Way to Further Design Thinking."Edutopia. N.p., 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.