I Search

Here are of the Double Bubble Maps that students worked on last week.

Today was quite pleasant, apart from having the office call rainy day schedule for part of our recess. We spent most of the morning reviewing our Open Court packets to date, and students are now aware of what papers they may need to locate or do over. For those who have lost papers, I will be providing them with some extra copies. After recess we watched a little more of Ramona. It is a corny movie, but effective. Students are definitely enjoying it, and learning a lot about the mission period.

Today we are starting on our first "I Search" paper. The I Search paper is an alternative to the traditional research paper. There are a few key differences. First, the I Search paper is personal. Unlike the research paper, it is written in the first person. Secondly, the I Search paper describes the process of learning about the subject more than attempting to cover the topic. In an I Search paper, students write things like, "I found a book in the library that was about Flemings life. In that book, I read that...."

For today, the students need to pick a topic related to medicine. It could be a famous scientist or a particular disease. They will then write three paragraphs about it.

1. In the first paragraph, they will tell what topic they picked, and most important of all, why they picked that topic.
2. In the second paragraph, they will write down what they already know about this topic.
   
3. In the third paragraph, they will write down some things that they wish to learn about the topic.

Again, all of these will be written in the first person. Each paragraph will be at least five sentences, and students need to skip lines. We will be working on these tomorrow in Writer's Workshop, and talking some more tomorrow about where they will go from here with the paper.

Home Studies: (1) Do the Word Study & Vocabulary. (2) Do the first three paragraphs of the I Search paper as described above. (3) Do "Divide with Remainders," Math, page 243, 2-38. Be sure to make a model when the directions call for it.