AP Seminar: Sept.25-Oct.6

This is a two week update because I’ll be out of town next weekend!

We’ve finally started digging into our first big research project! In fact “dig into your research” was our class learning goal yesterday.  I talked to the students about truly digging in and reading their research. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that many students have mastered the art of skim and scan for “good quotes” and, up until this point, they’ve been very successful with that method. For the type of writing they will do in this class, they need to use the skimming and scanning to choose their sources, but then they need to actually READ them!! One student said, “What if a source is like 50 pages??” My reply? “Buckle up and start reading.”  The goal for Monday was to come to class having read two high quality sources. If you have time this weekend, ask your student how that’s going!!

This week and next will be spent working primarily on the independent portion of this project, the Individual Research Report. Students are researching one small area of their team’s problem or issue and will write an essay detailing their findings. We will have multiple writing conferences throughout the next two weeks, and students will have many opportunities to receive feedback on both their writing and research. If they are working steadily in class, you should see some work at home, but never more than 30 minutes in the evenings.  If your student is working all night on this, it is highly likely that things were left to the last minute!! We’ve talked about making a plan for the research and writing process; please check in periodically over the next two weeks with your student and see how that process is going!! Students who are struggling to stay on track need to let me know.

Have a great weekend!