Unit 4:  Information Detectives

Activity 2:  Begin with an Interest (GLEs: 14a, 19d, 23a, 23b, 35, 43a, 43b, 43c, 43d, 43e, 43f, 43g)

CC:  Teachers model how to conduct a research project with a focused topic. A chart is posted to track the stages of the project including:

Defining the task

Selecting resources

Recording information

Organizing information

Presenting information

Evaluating work

The teacher clarifies the scope of the project and suggests a timeline for each step. Students are given guidelines for topic selection, and they begin to investigate a content area study, a real-world issue, or a topic of genuine interest. They brainstorm questions and determine one or two key questions worth investigating. Then the teacher and students explore resources, such as the library and online databases, the Internet, community and government data, interviews, experiments, surveys, reference books, etc. This exploratory phase helps students generate ideas and pinpoint the focus of the project and also gives them a starting point for gathering information.

NOTE TO TEACHERS:  The Information Literacy Model for Lifelong Learning (sometimes referred to as the LA7) was created by the Louisiana Department of Education as part of the state curriculum guides.  It provides the basic framework for an information problem-solving process that all teachers and library media specialists can use in designing instruction to help students become information literate.  The following documents were created in MS WORD and PowerPoint to support the use of the LA7 model for conducting research projects.

MS Word - "LA7 Literacy Model"

MS Word - "Research Guide"

PowerPoint- "LA7 Model"