Some People Call it . . .

Language Arts, English, and Reading are often used interchangeably when discussing that block of literacy instruction that takes up a good chunk of a middle-schooler's day. I suspect that people tend to use the term most familiar to them.

Personally, I prefer Language Arts because I see a diverse set of goals for the class. Certainly, there is plenty of reading and writing and literature. But I believe it is also critical to help students develop good listening and speaking skills, to be able to process verbal information and speak with clarity in formal and informal situations.

When I polled students the other day, they believed that success in 70% to 95% of their school day depends on good listening. And while I will become more acquainted with their writing, the lion's share of what I have learned about my students so far has come through verbal interaction.

So call it what you will . . . as long as speaking and listening are components of language emphasized in the class. These are skills, and like other skills they can be strengthened or they can atrophy. To me, it's a clear choice.

Sources with Scientists, Part 4

School thoughts on this topic . . .

The type of research that Katie and Bruce perform is very much about knowledge construction, where they build meaning out of a situation that does not have a predetermined end result. One thing I will be looking to document is whether other fields require this type of research as well.

I contrast the knowledge construction model to many of the research projects I recognize from years of working in schools, primarily at the middle school grades. School research projects often take on the form of a scavenger hunt, where students gather and organize clues from various research sources to complete an assignment that meets an expected set of outcomes.

For example, a research paper on Abraham Lincoln is assessed on how well a student covers and includes certain bits of data, like Lincoln’s early life, his political career, the incidents of the Civil War, his assassination, etc. There are certain expected elements of the finished project.

So we are looking at two types of research projects that are quite different in their approaches. One primarily requires convergent research skills while the other builds in a divergent way; one reports facts while the other constructs a story; one is guided discovery, one is led by self-discovery.

Perhaps an early step in planning research reports in school will be to determine the goals of the project and decide whether those goals are best met through the knowledge construction model or the scavenger hunt model.

More to come . . .

Sources with Scientists, Part 3

The previous post on evaluating sources from a scientist’s perspective dealt with the sources themselves . . . now we’ll look at the skills of the scientist.

In order to effectively evaluate the worthiness of data, the scientist must be able to:
• Understand the limits of data
• Clarify the purpose of collecting the data
• Build a framework for understanding what’s needed
• Employ the process of ‘brain-dropping’ (finding and setting aside nuggets of data for later consolidation)
• Create flexible outlines
• Evaluate visual data
• Recognize bias
• Deconstruct sources

Over time, we will examine and process these skills, especially as they relate to the classroom. We will also be looking for consistency of skills in the data gathered from researchers in other fields.