Comp/Lit 9: 2/24/2011

Civil Rights Movement Research-Library Day

• Today we met in the library to research various topics connected to the Civil Rights Movement.
• I started by reviewing where non-fiction and reference materials are located in the library.  I explained to the students that they must use a minimum of one book source and one electronic source.  The electronic source must be something from a library database (no google, no wikipedia).
• We discussed research/notetaking techniques.  Once you find an article, skim it.  If you do not like it, move on to another article.  If you do like, write down the works cited information, then begin to take notes.  It will be essential to look at several articles and read a lot of information.  It will be difficult to determine the "most important" information if you don't read very many articles.
• Finally, I talked about the issue with the To Kill a Mockingbird books.  The school currently does not have enough copies for all of my students.  I would like to be able to continue with my current plan of starting To Kill a Mockingbird next week, but in order to do that, I will need (some of) my students to purchase the book.  I am hopeful that will the limited number of books that the school has and the number of students that can purchase the book, we will be able to continue with the current plan.
• The students had the rest of the period to conduct their research in the library.
• Homework: Finish the Formal Business Letter and print to bring to class on Monday.  Upload the business letter to Turnitin.com by Sunday February 27.  Finish the Research Works Cited.  Prepare for the Research Presentation on Monday.  Complete VFA #19-20.  Buy/Bring the book To Kill a Mockingbird to class on Monday (this is optional, but I would like to be able to see exactly how many students have a copy of the book)
• Here is the Amazon link for To Kill a Mockingbird