For our final project in the Penn Literacy Network our team decided to do an iSearch with an old assignment. In the past my students were assigned a research paper in which all of the essential questions were asked by me and were the same for every student. Basically I could have done this in a worksheet format, but I wanted them to practice writing research papers and utilizing MLA format.
A few days were spent in the library learning how to do an iSearch. Afterwards students spent time reading about different cases and chose one from an area of law that interested them. They were then asked to come up with three burning questions and then utilize any resource at their disposal to answer their three burning questions.
The assignments have not yet been turned in, but many of the students did who a genuine interest in their chosen topic. However, that is not to say that I don't have some concerns. While the students were reading cases some deliberately chose not to research cases that seemed not to have easily accessible information. Others came up with very poor burning questions that would simply allow them to easily complete the assignment. I forced them to come up with better ones, but as usual my honor students did not want to do much in the way of thinking and simply wanted to once again be the best at the easiest task.
I will hold them responsible for this when it comes time to grade, but overall I think I will get some good papers.
