New Research Unit

I am a teacher in my sixth year of a subject whose curriculum has not changed since I've been there. Translation: same units, same lessons, same books, every year. Now don't get me wrong - I don't teach it all exactly the same way every year, but in the end, it's the same stuff. I am now in the trenches of the unit I hate the very most in my curriculum.

Ask anyone in my department and they will tell you: I HATE RESEARCH. There are lots of reasons for this most well-founded of hatreds, but I'd rather talk about the new things I'm trying with my kids this year:

1. Genuine inquiry and the "Essential Question"- Up until this year, we have given the kids a list of people for our kids to research. Oh, did I forget to say the list of people were all Kansans? That's right. It literally could not get more boring or irrelevant to their lives. But this year, we are starting with this essential question: What does it mean to change the world? After reflection and discussion, the kids had 48 hours to come up with 3 events that they believed changed the world.
2.  The use of the ISN as a graphic organizer - Students are using their Interactive Student Notebooks to keep track of both their sources and citations and their research. We used to use note cards, which was a mess and a pain in the tail to grade. Keeping everything in the ISN keeps things organized and easy to grade.
3. Our resident black-belt in research - our new librarian is phenomenal. He asked if he could teach the kids about print and non-print sources (to which I responded with a resounding yes!) and has been in the lab with my kids every step of the way answering questions and helping out. He is awesome!

I truly believe this may turn out to be one of my very favorite units! We wrap up next week, so I will post my take aways then.