I-Search: Finding Just-Right Print Sources for YOU

Now that your preliminary research is over, it's time for you to be more picky about what you read.  Once you find some just-right print sources for YOU, it's important to keep track of what you read. 

To learn from an article or other print source, you need to be able to understand it when you read it.  How do you know what articles are going to be just right for you?  The simple answer is: you have to know yourself as a reader. 

• Easy text for you is text where you know all the words and all of the ideas.  Here's an example for me: easy example
• Just-right text for you is text where you know most of the ideas and most of the words.  Here's an example for me: just-right example
• Challenging text is text where you don't know a lot of the ideas and a lot of the words.  Here's an example for me: challenging example

The AIM for today's lesson is for you to organize your Notes page so that it has at least two articles that are just-right for you, including all bibliography information. 

Here are the steps for today's lesson:

1. Create a new screen so you can read these instructions while still working on another screen.
2. Click into the 8th grade site and log in.
3. Click into your I-Search Notes page.  Do you have any articles?  If yes, read the first few paragraphs to see if it is just-right for you using the guidelines above.  If the article is just-right for you, make sure that you have all bibliography information (magazine name, title of article, author, date).  You need to have two articles by the end of today. 
4. If you don't have any articles in your I-Search Notes page, or if they're not just-right for you to read and learn from, you may need to keep searching the SFPL database to find better articles or change your topic and write some more IQs.  When you do find some articles, follow the instructions for #3 above. 
5. When there are about 5 minutes left in class, edit your I-Search Journal and make an entry for your I-Search work today.