Teaching Materials



Overview

The ability to take good notes is essential to an information seeker. Identifying important information, culling the most relevant parts, and organizing it for later use are key skills addressed by this lesson. Two skills are emphasized: paraphrasing and identifying fact fragments. The meaning of plagiarism is explored and strategies taught to avoid it. The groundwork for citation of sources is taught as part of the note taking process and will be covered in more detail in a later lesson.

This short series of lessons will be taught by the media specialist, with the assistance of the classroom teacher. Time necessary for the lessons is estimated at two hour-long class periods. The students will continue to practice the skills learned with the support of the classroom teacher and media specialist throughout the larger inquiry research project.


Student objectives

Students will


Standards

Indiana's Academic Standards

Sixth Grade Language Arts

Information Literacy Standards (AASL/AECT)


Materials Needed


Roles and responsibilities

The Media Specialist will teach these lessons, with the Classroom Teacher observing and assisting students during practice exercises.


Lesson outline

Preparation

  1. Create a transparency of Joyce K. Valenza's "Plagiarism vs. Documentation" and Paraphrasing documents.
  2. Obtain a copy of The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien and bookmark the first page of chapter one
  3. Make enough copies of the Antarctica handout for students to work in pairs
  4. Make transparencies of the bears and elephants encyclopedia articles.
  5. Make copies of global warming encyclopedia article.
  6. Make copies of the homework assignment
  7. Make copies of the data sheet

Instruction and Activities

Session 1

  1. Begin class by asking, "What is plagiarism?" Have students brainstorm definitions and write a list or web on the overhead transparency. Give dictionary definition of plagiarism: "The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." Mention that it comes from the Latin word for kidnapper [4].
  2. Explain that it is possible to plagiarize unintentionally by failing to give credit for information that is used in a report.
  3. Ask, "How do we use the information we find without plagiarizing?" Have students give their ideas on writing in their own words, citing sources, etc. and create a list or web on the overhead transparency.
  4. Display transparency of Plagiarism vs. Documentation document. Cover everything below the "Original text from:" section. Have students read the passage.
  5. Uncover "Writing Sample #1" and allow students to read it and comment on whether or not this is plagiarism.
  6. Uncover the "Unacceptable" paragraph and discuss why "Writing Sample #1" is considered plagiarism.
  7. Continue this process for Writing Samples #2 and #3.
  8. Say, "I would be plagiarizing right now if I let you think that I created these examples. I didn't. They were made by Joyce Valenza, who is a media specialist at a high school in Pennsylvania." Show the citation.
  9. Introduce paraphrasing, quoting, and common knowledge using Paraphrasing transparency.
  10. Read aloud the first two paragraphs from Chapter 1 of The Hobbit. Ask the students to paraphrase verbally what they learned about Hobbit holes. Point out that because they were listening instead of reading they can't remember every word, and have to put it in their own words. That is what we want to do when we take notes.
  11. Distribute the Antarctica handout. Have students practice paraphrasing written text in groups of two. Teacher and media specialist walk around the room providing feedback and help as necessary.
  12. With help from the class, paraphrase the Antarctica passage on a blank transparency. Be sure to stress that everyone's wording will be different.
  13. Point out that quotations are almost the opposite of paraphrasing, since you must copy the quotation exactly as written, but also give credit in the sentence and in the bibliography.

Session 2

  1. Begin class with media specialist and classroom teacher performing a skit about taking telephone messages. See http://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=41 for a script. The point of the skit is humorously point out to students that writing down every word is not an effective way to take notes. What we need are "fact fragments."
  2. Briefly review the idea of keywords and introduce basic skimming and scanning techniques such as looking in headings and subheadings, first sentences of paragraphs, captions of pictures, etc. for their keywords in order to identify areas for closer reading.
  3. Use the analogy of a prize in the cereal or Cracker Jacks box. Students have to dig through a lot of "stuff" to get to what they really want. Finding information that we can use to answer our questions is the "prize."
  4. Give students the question, "How common are black bears in the United States and how likely am I to see one ?"
  5. Quickly make a list of keywords and synonyms.
  6. Display the bear article transparency. When students identify the relevant section (American black bears), circle it on the transparency.
  7. Go through the section one paragraph at a time, looking at the first sentence and asking "does this answer the question?" If not, cross it out and go on to the next paragraph.
  8. When a paragraph is found that contains useful information (1st and 4th), go through the paragraph sentence by sentence, asking "does this answer the question?" If not, cross it out and go on to the next sentence.
  9. When a sentence is found that contains useful information, go through that sentence phrase by phrase, crossing out any that do not answer the question.
  10. When a phrase is found that contains useful information, go through that phrase word by word, crossing out any that do not help answer the question.
  11. Circle the "winner" words and have students write them down, explaining that these words are fact fragments, and are all that are needed when taking notes, just like in the example of taking a phone message.
  12. Count the number of words in the sentence, and then count the number of circled words. Emphasize how much less work it is to write just the fact fragments. The important information is still captured and having short notes makes paraphrasing almost unavoidable.
  13. Distribute copies of the elephant article and data sheets.
  14. Give students the question "Why have elephants become endangered?" and have them practice finding keywords on their own.
  15. Have students work in pairs to practice finding fact fragments and writing them on the data sheet. Media specialist and classroom teacher walk around the room providing feedback and help as necessary.
  16. Distribute homework assignments and data sheets
  17. Have students fill out a simple questionnaire about these two lessons to see if they are progressing as expected.

Back to Materials

[1] Snyder, George K. "Bear." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2004 ed.

[2] Moss, Cynthia. "Elephant." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2004 ed.

[3] Mastrandrea, Michael D. and Schneider, Stephen H. "Global Warming." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2004 ed.

[4] Definition from the Apple computer desktop dictionary, version 1.0.1, 2005.


Independent Work

  1. Homework assignment covering note-taking and paraphrasing

Extensions

Students who need more practice can use the this online tutorial about fact fragments (requires MacroMedia ShockWave).


Student Assessment

  1. Observation of participation
  2. Homework grading rubric
  3. Reflection questionnaire