More Freshmen Follies

You can’t make this stuff up.

The 9th graders are researching the Middle Ages. Yesterday, their task was to answer a few basic questions based on reading an encyclopedia article.

Topic: Medieval Inventions

Question: What are 2 things about your topic that you plan to research in more depth?

My 2 favorite answers?

Cars (Wonder how that’s workin’ out for him??)

Medieval inventions like the atom bomb and radar (Who knew?)

I couldn’t get through grading this stuff if I didn’t run across these gems!

It is always a surprise to me just how difficult research is for students.  How many times we have to go over the steps.   How often we teach the process and have to re-teach it only a year later.

The hardest concepts for them to get?

  • Once you find a book, you need to actually sign it out – not just add it to  your works cited list
  • Once you find an article,  you need to print it out – not just add it to  your works cited list
  • Once you find your sources, you need to READ THEM so that you KNOW that atom bombs, radar and automobiles did not exist in the Middle Ages.

Repeat after me: S-I-G-H

We are having a snow day today.  Yay!!

I slept till 10 am – dreaming of tracking automobiles with radar in the Middle Ages so that I could use a catapult to annihilate them with an atom bomb.

It will be great to have another person to commiserate with.  It is UNBELIEVABLE how much repetition of self-evident information we have to give the kids for many of them to HOPE to get it right.  Seems like one could say this and be done with it:
“Find a whole book about your topic, an encylopedia article, a reference book article, a magazine article  and a web page about a medieval topic, fill out a form on EasyBib for each source, and turn it in at the end of each period, and turn the completed works cited list at the end of the last library period.”
That is the whole 10-day project in one sentence – but you cannot imagine how many ways there are to screw it up.
The hardest concepts for them to get?
Once you find a book, you need to sign it out
Once you find an article,  you need to print it out
Once you find your sources, you need to READ THEM so that you KNOW that atom bombs, radar and automobiles did not exist in the Middle Ages.
Repeat after me: S-I-G-H
Hope you are enjoying your snow day.  I slept till 10 – dreaming of tracking automobiles with radar in the Middle Ages so that I could use a catapult to annihilate them with an atom bomb.

10 thoughts on “More Freshmen Follies

  1. Oh yeah, I feel your pain.

    One thing we have done this year to sort of “force” the issue is gotten our honors classes’ teachers to add/require an annotated bibliography in the process. No it hasn’t cured the problem totally, but it has helped kids realize they cannot just create a works cited of just anything. It is also making them be more selective and evaluative of their sources–asking important questions like “does this really go with my research or answer my essential question?”

    But on the downside it has caused some to change their topics to make searching easier. (My interpretation for some–>Laziness on some students’ part.) It has also increased frustration amongst the kids, but I keep trying to assure them THAT is a big reason I am in the library–to help.

    Thanks for letting me commiserate.

  2. Thanks for your response. It is so good to know that it is not just me. And I love to hear from other foot soldiers on the ground. I keep thinking about what I could do better. The annotation idea is a great one. I will mull that one over for awhile.

    Also – if the English dept. sticks with the Middle Ages as a topic (they changes topics every few years) – I think I will work on getting the kids some background knowledge before we ever get started. I’d like to find a good, basic overview of the middle ages that is about 2-3 pages long at the maximum, and also a really good video.

    I THOUGHT I was doing enough by copying the tables of contents of our general middle ages books, and putting them on the tables along with the books so they could do a little reading before they chose their topic. But I noticed that too many of them spend little time actually looking at those aids before racing to the teacher to sign up for a topic. Next year, we’ll force them to take more time.

    Will there ever be a perfect year? That’s what keeps me avoiding retirement I guess. That and how much I enjoy the kids – in spite of my online “sighing.”

  3. I had to laugh out loud when I read about the Medieval cars! I do think you have a point in that the students don’t have a clue about what life, culture, etc. was like during a historical time period. I never thought about asking these kind of questions when I was teaching European History (many, many years ago) but I wonder if the students were asked general cultural questions before starting their research if they would at least think about whether their answer was realistic.

    Mode of transportation?
    Military weapons?
    Occupations?
    etc.

  4. Thanks for your comment Floyd! We used to have students research YA authors for this major English Research Paper. This year the teacher thought it would be a good idea to pick a global history topic and asked the Social Studies teachers what era she should assign. They picked the Middle Ages. But – lesson learned…. Next year, we plan to assign some readings and/or videos to give the kids a little background knowledge to start with.

  5. Jacquie,

    You’ve accomplished step one – getting an English teacher to talk to a social studies teacher. That is a major feat unto itself. We have paired honors Global/English classes and you would think that the teachers would co-plan or at least talk to each other.

    I LOVE your “Hardest concepts.” Once I get back to work, I think I’ll suggest to Beth that we put them on a poster and display them in the library classroom (or put them on bookmarks).

  6. Isn’t it amazing how something so self-evident is such a huge problem. We had juniors in doing research today. They kept coming up to the teacher with a thesis statement that they created without reading ANYTHING about their topics. Oh well. At least we know we are needed!

    Hope you are feeling better. I KNOW Beth really misses you!

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  8. Classic. Thanks for making me laugh 🙂

    I’m going to really have to start working on this with my middle schoolers. I see them using Wiki Answers over and over and over again. Today we talked a little bit about why wikis are not the most reliable source. And guess what? They knew why they shouldn’t use them. They just don’t care!

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