Teaching the Research Process

I spent the hour showing my AP Literature and Composition students about the subscription databases, MNLink, WorldCat, MLA, Research Calculator--and anything else I could think of to show them about researching. They are working on a 7-10 page paper related to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man that is due on December 3rd. I am very glad to have taken the hour to show them all of this because it seemed that a lot of this information was new to them. I also showed them how to use these resources by using some of their topics. I think they were really impressed by how much information is out there that they didn't know about--and how fast it was to find. Showing them how to use these resources was fun. I hope that they are excited about it as well--and that they start using these resources this weekend! They seemed really excited about the research calculator and how it would break the steps of the research process down--and how each section would be emailed to them. It made me think--if my AP students don't know about these resources, what are the odds that my ninth graders know about them? Very slim odds indeed. We won't cover the research process until second semester for the ninth graders, but I am excited to see what they think.