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outdoor space where students can sit for about 30 minutes. Ask them to listen, look around, and take notes. Suggest they jot down descriptive words (windy, cool, dusty, chirping, etc.). Return to the classroom and ask them to share what they observed and heard. What are they curious about now that they have listed their observations? Nudge their thinking about topics such as weather, animals, or construction of buildings.
● Journals allow students to tap into memories. Ask students to examine entries and see what might be a topic to research (perhaps an entry about the family dog could inspire nonfiction about backyard plants harmful to pets or veterinarians, fiction about a day in a dog’s life, or a poem describing the pet’s antics). Have students create a list of ideas for writing that connect to an entry.
● Content studies allow students to cross the curriculum with their writing. Studying about the oceans? Each student can choose some aspect for further investigation (sharks, coral reefs, effects of oil spills, natural disasters such as hurricanes). Focusing on percentages in math? Students could look into how baseball teams use math to decide on pitchers, the batting line up, or batting average.
Step 2: Presearch. Presearch gives our topic a “test run.” Is there enough information to assist us when we are ready to write? What might be interesting about the topic than could direct my writing ideas? Joyce and Tallman (1997) note,
much of the success or failure of a research project hinged on the successful completion of the presearch stage of the research process. At this stage, students selected a topic, found a focus, wrote questions to guide their research, and created a tentative organizational pattern. Without these components, students lacked direction and purpose, and became overwhelmed by a sea of information (p.15).
Presearch is a two-step process (1) posing questions about our topic to guide the search and (2) searching for and skim reading possible resources.
● Practice question posing with the class. Propose a topic (for instance, you might tie it to ongoing studies such as the Lewis and Clark explorations or the water cycle). Students can assist you in posing questions about the topic (What was the most difficult part of the journey for Lewis and Clark? How does the water cycle influence animal migration?). Be sure to have students list enough
Before They Write: Topic, Presearch, and Research
By
Mary Jo Fresch and David L. Harrison
As author Dan Brown quips, “’Google’ is not a synonym for ‘research’” (Goodreads, 2016). While technology has the potential to help us find answers, we also know the pitfalls of inaccurate or unreliable information posted on the web.
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