Handouts

If there is no access to the technology needed for this lesson, try the following options:

• Student Activity: Instead of directing students to the Constitution Today website, distribute copies of news articles from the student website or distribute Handouts 2.3a, 2.3b, 2.3c, 2.3d, 2.3e, or 2.3f to students, depending on the issues they have chosen to research.

Objectives

The class will learn how to create research questions that will help them conduct deeper research on their issues. Students will create research questions on their issues and share them with other students on the Class Weblog. Students will use their research questions as a guide while taking notes on a news article.

Focusing Question

Mini Lesson

Today, you are going to develop research questions about your issue. In the last class, you learned note-taking skills for research. Research questions can help us decide what information is important in the sources we take notes on.

Let’s take a look at the issue that I have been studying as an example. I have been researching the Patriot Act, a law that Congress passed to help prevent terrorist attacks. We already talked about how some people think it is a good law because they think it will help keep us safe, and how other people are concerned that it might give the government too much power to invade our privacy.

What else would I want to know before I start my research? One thing that I definitely want to know is when this law was first passed. I am going to go to the Constitution Today website and select Class Weblogs. I created a weblog for all of you to post your research questions to. I will now post my first research question.

The Patriot Act:
When was the Patriot Act first passed into law?

I also want to know who supports the law.

Who supports the Patriot Act? Why?

What are some other things that you would like to know about this issue?
Sample Responses: Who is against the law? Why? Has this law helped the government catch any terrorists? Are there any court cases going on that involve the Patriot Act? What do experts in the CIA and FBI think of the law? Has the government invaded the privacy of anyone who wasn’t a terrorist?

All of these questions can help me while I am researching this issue. They can help me decide if information that I find is important or not.

Develop five good research questions with your group. Post these questions to the class weblog, so that we can all see everyone’s questions. Use other groups' questions to give you some ideas for questions.

When you have finished posting your questions, use them to help you take notes on a news article. There are news articles on your issue page from Step 2 on the Constitution Today website. Take notes on one of the articles listed under News Articles.

Student Activity

1. Monitor student note-taking. Observe students’ writing. Encourage students to write the important ideas from each page on their index cards.
2. Group together students who may have difficulty writing their ideas with students who can express their ideas in writing well.
3. Provide students who struggle with paraphrasing some examples from other student discussions. Instruct students who are struggling with reading to listen to the audio for each page and look at the pictures to help them understand the text.
4. Allow students who work more productively independently to complete the activity on their own and encourage them to share their ideas with a group or another student when they finish taking notes.
5. If necessary, limit the amount of writing that students will do during this class period. 
6. Instruct students who complete the note-taking activity early to review their index cards and compare them to the index cards of other students in their group.

Lesson Summary

Let’s take a look at the research questions you all developed earlier. This group did an excellent job developing research questions.

How did you come up with your questions?
Sample Response: We did not know a lot about this issue before we started our research. We wanted to know if this had happened in other cities and how the people felt about it. We also thought about different technology that existed 100 and 200 years ago. We want to know if new technology will change the way people will think about this issue in the future.

Would someone like to share his or her research questions with the class?

Was anyone able to find any answers to your research questions in the news article?

How did research questions help you?
Sample Responses: The research questions helped me realize that not all of the information in the article is important. There are some facts I think are important to the issue and then some information that does not relate to it at all. The questions helped me focus on what is important.

Assessment