Scientists use daybooks, too

Karen created this short video to show students how researchers track their work in daybooks.

(To enlarge video to full screen, click on button on bottom right corner)

A resource for people passionate about helping students write well, compiled by Karen Haag

Teachers are designing research-writing projects. In part, our states are pushing us in that direction. In my own state, North Carolina, fourth and seventh graders prepare for what are called Content Writing Tests. In addition, students learn to read nonfiction passages, which make up 60% of our reading tests. Whereas in the past elementary teachers favored teaching personal and imaginative narratives and poetry, our new assessments have motivated us to teach writing nonfiction. In the middle schools where content teachers score the writing tests along with their English Language Arts colleagues, more teachers are integrating writing into the classes.

Other reasons are driving this momentum as well, of course. Teachers discovered that offering nonfiction selections engaged reluctant readers more readily. It’s easier for English language learners to comprehend texts with photographs that support the writing. By teaching elementary students how to read nonfiction – the text features and what they mean – students fare better reading textbooks as they move into the upper grades. With the advent of the Internet, the technology explosion has changed how we teach as well.

I explored research writing with my students. Sometimes, I let them pick whatever topic they wanted to explore, anything in the world. Most of the time however, we have so little time and a very packed curriculum. When I can’t afford the time for complete free choice, students self-select what they want to learn more about within a unit of study.

For example, in 5th grade we studied the entire western hemisphere in one year. I divided this amazingly broad topic into 4 units, one for each quarter: geography, history, politics and economics. During the second unit – history – students chose writing topics from a long list of subtopics that dovetailed with the curriculum I was hired to teach.

NEXT: Grades 1-2 resources

Other great help

• Resources for grades K-2
• Resources for grades 4-12
• Websites and magazines for grades K-6

Lessons and handouts available to download

On this page, you can download some of my favorite lessons that I’ve discovered move students along in a study of research writing.

We teach strategies for reading factual texts to our youngest children. That might seem rather dull. But I was in a classroom the other day where reading instruction was any thing but. Grade level: K-2.

Have fun! Integrate writing, reading and content by writing a whole-class, main-idea, research book. The 9-lesson unit helped my students construct an understanding of main ideas vs. details, revising vs. editing, retelling vs. summarizing, and copying vs. writing original work.

2nd grade and up.