Episode 279: A Research Unit Your Students Will Actually Enjoy

Get ready for an important episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast! Listen in as your hosts, Caitlin, Jessica, and Megan tackle the topic of middle school ELA research units and exactly how you can make them engaging and memorable for your students.

In this episode, we're sharing personal experiences and practical tips for creating research projects that your students will actually enjoy. From key components like crafting essential questions and finding reliable sources to organizing evidence and creating works cited pages, we've got you covered with fresh ideas.

You'll also hear a unique and fun research unit idea that will have your students hooked from the start. Imagine inviting them to "Camp Explore" where they embark on a fictional camping adventure and must research and budget for essential camping supplies. It's hands-on, practical, and most importantly, engaging!

We'll provide step-by-step instructions on how to set up this research unit, and we've even got tips on incorporating games and activities to wrap up the unit with a celebration of your students' hard work.

Listen now and get inspired to take your research units to a whole new level!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, teachers, welcome back to another episode. You are in for a treat. Today. We took a moment to focus on how you can make your next research unit something that your students actually enjoy, so in this episode, you'll hear an idea for a unique spin on perhaps your traditional research plans. So definitely come back to this one when you can take notes, write some ideas down, et cetera. So I'm really excited to see how these ideas apply for you in your classrooms. If you actually utilize them, which we hope that you do, go ahead and send us a message over on Instagram at EB academics.

Speaker 1: 0:35

All right, let's go ahead and listen in. Hi there, Caitlin here. Our mission at EB academics is simple Help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks and genuine support so that you can become the best version of yourself both inside and outside of the classroom. So if you think you might be ready to try something new, because you know you simply cannot continue the way that you have been that I'd invite you to take a moment to check out the EB Teachers Club, the EB Writing Program or the EB Grammar Program by visiting the links in the description of the podcast. We hope to continue to support you within one of our programs in the future and in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast each week.

Speaker 1: 1:32

All right, you guys, let's dive into this topic. It is that time of year where research units are upon us. I cannot even tell you, when I was in the classroom my first couple of years, we had a research paper that was doing I taught juniors, so it wasn't like just like a little bit of a research paper, it was like a legit, full blown research paper that I hadn't teach these students how to write and I had no idea what I was doing. My mentor teacher tried to help me with like research paper cards and like we would go to the library and we weren't even researching stuff online. Really, at that time I feel like am I really that old that we didn't utilize the internet?

Speaker 2: 2:05

We are. We are that old.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Oh my gosh. Okay, but it is that time of year. We wanna give you something that is a unit that your students are actually going to enjoy. That might be something a little bit new than what you're used to. Because, I will say, one of the things that we notice, and that I notice with myself too, is that we often seem to assign like the similar kinds of research paper projects year after year, or research projects. Perhaps you're a fifth grade teacher and you do like a research brochure or whatever. It might be right. I remember my mom doing those first. Each state we had at the fifth grade.

Speaker 3: 2:38

As a fifth grader, I had to do that.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Yep, yep. My mom was my fifth grade teacher and these projects are great, right? They help students think carefully. We want them to like, find and elicit information. They write about what they've learned. It is important, it is really beneficial for them to be doing this.

Speaker 1: 2:54

But if you are in a research paper rut and you've assigned like the same Ellis Island research paper every single year for the last six years, consider switching it up. Consider this like your wake up call, like, hey, come try something different, let's shake it up a little bit, right? Because, when it comes down to it, students can truly do a research paper on any topic, quite frankly, and in any capacity and any deliverable that you want them to do it, as long as there are some essential components, and that's what Megan's going to talk to you about. And then Jessica is going to describe a really fun research project that's coming out for our EB Teachers Club members. But you can still utilize these concepts and take them and apply them to your own research unit that you're going to use with your students and your classroom. All right. So, megan, can you talk to us about some of these essential components? We want to make sure that we include you bet.

Speaker 2: 3:41

So there's really four essential components, and the first one, appropriately, is an essential question. So you want to think about what are students researching or writing about? This essential question helps provide a focus for the entire project and it's going to help you determine the type of evidence that students are searching for. The second essential component are sources. So think about where are students finding the information to support their position? Probably online these days, right, but you can use. You can use encyclopedias and books in the library. They're still there. You might be providing articles or books for them, so really guide them in where they're finding their sources. The third essential component is evidence and justification. Students need opportunities to really gather relevant evidence that supports what they're researching, and they might need a place to put that evidence as well. So think about that. The fourth essential component, then, is a works cited page, so students will need to document where their evidence came from so that they're not plagiarizing, and then ensure it's also trustworthy and valid information.

Speaker 3: 4:44

So, jessica, take it away, yes okay, I'm going to share a totally different idea for a research unit now. So, caitlin, when you were just describing like the old way you did research with the note cards and going to the library, this is not that this should be interesting. I want Caitlin and Megan to stop me ask questions, because this is super exciting. This is actually an issue we have coming up in May for our EB teachers club members and I am so pumped about it, like I think it is so much fun, and actually I haven't announced this yet. I mean, caitlin knows this, but I'm going to be homeschooling my oldest son starting Monday, like today's his last day at school and I'm super excited.

Speaker 3: 5:22

We're doing just ELA, like he'll go somewhere else for math, but anyway, I'm using this issue with him, like I'm use it before it gets released to our teachers. So I'll do like a preview of it, but I'm like we have to do this. He's going to love it and this, again, coming from a fifth grade boy, this is going to be something he's into and that's what I'm excited about. Love it.

Speaker 3: 5:41

How this research unit works is you're going to hook your students with like a really fun activity. You're not going to say, today we're going to start research, take out your note cards. No, you're going to actually invite them to camp explore. So, eb teachers, again, this is all done for you, but you can absolutely create this on your own. Use the same camp name who cares? So invite your students to camp explore and tell them it's a fictional two week sleepaway camp and they need to bring some important supplies with them. Right, they are going to need a sleeping bag or hiking boots or whatever it is and tell them that they've all received a $150 scholarship to pay for those items. But the challenge is they need to find items that fit within that budget and that still work well for their camping needs. So of course they're going to have to research, right? That's where the research component comes in. So to get it, I'm just going to interrupt.

Speaker 1: 6:31

$150 is like nothing. It's nothing.

Speaker 3: 6:34

It's going to make it, and that's like what a pair of shoes cost nowadays, I know it's crazy, well, we, I'll get into that. But if I don't come back to it, remind me, okay.

Speaker 3: 6:44

So, you want to hook your students again. You want to make this like something they are pumped about to come into class and do every day. They can tell the you know other teachers like oh my God, we get to go do research, this is fun stuff. So you're going to read them a letter. If you want to get really into it, have the principal come in and read the letter, or do it over the intercom anything to like up the excitement. So I'm going to read it to you.

Speaker 3: 7:05

You can use this exact one with your own students. So you're going to say dear campers, get set for an incredible adventure at our fantastic summer camp. We're thrilled to invite you to camp explore, where every day brings new excitement and unforgettable memories. Our camp will kick off on July 1st and we can't wait to see all your smiling faces Get ready for two weeks packed with exciting activities, new friends and outdoor experiences. Like already, if you don't tell your students that it's a fictional camp, they're probably going to be like wait, really, seriously, we're going to go in the outdoor ad.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I'm already busy.

Speaker 3: 7:39

Then you tell them here's a sneak peek at some of the fantastic things we have planned Outdoor games and sports, hiking adventures, campfire stories and sing-alongs, arts and crafts and much more. To make sure you're fully prepared for all the fun, here's a list of items you'll need to bring with you A flash type excuse me, a flashlight for nighttime. A sturdy backpack to carry your essentials, a pair of durable walking shoes. We can't wait to embark on this incredible journey with you. Get ready for the best summer ever. So then you explain to students that they have this fictional $150 and they need to go find these items. Then what you do for your students is you're going to provide them with newspaper ads, amazon printouts, because I get it, you don't want to just send your students off to the internet.

Speaker 2: 8:27

I would go on to Amazon and I would research hiking boots and print them out or I would research SleepyBike, print it out for students.

Speaker 3: 8:37

You can go to chat GPT and come up with a bunch of different ads, but basically what you're doing is you're providing your students with an assortment of very short descriptions for these items and they now need to determine okay, do I want the new boots from Amazon that cost, you know, 45.99, but they don't arrive till July 3rd and, uh-oh, that's not going to be on time. Or do I want the boots from the garage sale that you know, maybe aren't the fanciest, but they're only $10 and I can have them today. So you'll have to prepare that stuff in advance. But again, it's not that hard. You're just writing like a very brief blurb for each item, and chatGPT could totally do this for you.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yep, I went on there and I practiced it.

Speaker 3: 9:18

Yes, yeah, yeah, and you can take it to the next level. If you want to have reviews, add reviews. You don't need to right Like you decide how much effort again you want to put into it. Okay, I just have to interrupt.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Yeah, because this is like. This is what my husband does for anything that he buys, ever Like he is a research project for him to go grocery shopping, you know what I mean. It is like every type of butter and he will stand there and stare at the butters for five minutes to picking which one is like the best one that has this, and then he's got to like, okay, well, I'm going to look at the protein and I'm also going to look at, like the sodium in it and is it worth the price. It is a whole, everything, oh, whole situation with him and, bless his heart, I love him, but I'm like, bro, just pick a butter and like, let's move on, okay, but I love that you're saying this, though, because it just proves how practical this research unit is 100% using it, like basically you know when he goes to the store.

Speaker 3: 10:13

So much better Not saying there's not a time and a place for an Ellis Island research project. There absolutely is. But this just offers a different perspective where students are using it in a very practical, real life way, yep.

Speaker 1: 10:25

I love it.

Speaker 3: 10:26

Cool. Okay, so you give your students all these ads, like I was saying. You know you can print out things from Amazon. You can come up with like a fictitious garage sale one. What I think is important to differentiate is you want to make it a little challenging, like have three or four different hiking boots they need to pick from, or four different options for a flashlight. So now they really are looking and analyzing like okay, does this arrive in time? Is there a good review? Are batteries included with the flashlight or do I need a budget more for that? Like all those different things. So they're really using critical thinking skills to analyze the ads and consider all the descriptions.

Speaker 1: 11:01

So when the teacher puts this together, they should take into consideration that they don't want to have like a clear winner Right and there isn't.

Speaker 3: 11:08

And that's the beauty of it is, like you'll see, at the end, students will present their findings, but, caitlin, you might have a different answer than me, and we're both perfectly fine. I just spent more on my sleeping bag than you did, or you know whatever. It's all good, so I think that's good for students to see. So what they do, though, is they're doing all this research. You want to have them organize it right. This goes back to what Megan was talking about.

Speaker 3: 11:29

We've got our essential question of like what do I need to purchase for this camp, but now we're doing our evidence and we're figuring out our sources. Is the Amazon review accurate, or should I buy from the store that's having the sale whatever it is? And students can organize all their thinking in a comparison shark, and, again, you can have chat GPT create this for you. In fact, when we were designing this issue for our EB teachers, I was working with Pat, our curriculum creator, and she was like I'm just not envisioning what this comparison chart can look like. Can you give me like a mockup? And so I went on chat GPT and I did a very basic mockup to show her, and I was like oh, actually, I'm really impressed with this.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Nice work chat, GPT Right.

Speaker 3: 12:13

And you tell it. You know, please create a chart for me with different columns that list the name of the item, the price, the delivery date, the review and the source. So again going back to what Megan was talking about, we want students to really analyze is this an accurate source? And when you think about it, all of that information on the comparison page is kind of becoming your work cited page, because students are documenting where they are finding their evidence. It's just again done in a different way. And then students there's even a column where they, you know, mark which item did they purchase.

Speaker 3: 12:48

And then what you can have students do is share with the whole class and, like I was saying earlier, like it's okay if they have different answers, as long as they stayed within budget and there's logical reasoning. You know their items arrived in time or whatever. That's valid research right there, and they get to support their evidence with justification. You can have them write it down, so it's more traditional, like a research paper, or you can have them just explain it orally and I just I think it's so much fun for students to do all this but then to like tie the whole unit together is you don't want them to be like well, but wait, we never went to camp, right, like you can tell. You know there's going to be some kids who complain. So then what you can do is actually play a camp game with them. You can say you guys did such a great job, you all stayed within budget, you researched well, like all those good things, and then play something with them.

Speaker 3: 13:36

So in our issue for our teachers, we have two like no prep games. So I just want to share one with you. One is called Wa. Have either of you guys ever played this? I've never heard of this either, but in my extensive research on camp games, this one was fun. So apparently it's like done a lot in youth ministry groups, like on YouTube. That's all the videos for it, gotcha. So it's super fun. You stand in a circle and, like I might start with the Wa energy, and so I put my arms in the air like this and I pointed another person in the circle and I go Wa, and then that person does a certain movement and the two people next to them have to do the movement. It's very easy, just Google this game. I'm not doing a great job explaining it, but there is absolutely zero prep involved and it's all about like paying attention and making sure you say Wa at the right time. I played this like I literally made Daryl and my three kids play with me the other day.

Speaker 3: 14:32

And it was so funny because I wanted to see like, is this going to work for our teachers? And so we all played in the living room and Jameson and Davey caught on right away. Harper, right, she's five. She was having a little trouble and her Wa was always off and she would have been out every time. So we were like, Harper, you go be the judge. And she's like no, I don't have the Wa energy then.

Speaker 3: 14:54

And like so we just let her keep playing. But I'm like, okay, this is a fun activity. Your students will love it as kind of like a celebration to wrap up their research, because truly it is a rigorous unit and they're doing all the components they would in a typical research paper, just in a much more engaging way. So I hope you guys liked that.

Speaker 1: 15:13

I love it. No, I think it's fun.

Speaker 1: 15:15

I'm excited to see what our AB teachers club members think of it when they start using it with their students and we start to get feedback in the community. So, like Jessica said, you know she walked you through exactly how to set this up and structure it for your own classroom. Chat GPT is your friend. Utilize it. We utilize it a ton at EV to start brainstorming ideas and things like that. It is such a great brainstorming partner for anything like literally anything.

Speaker 1: 15:38

If you're not using chat GPT every single day, you're missing out. You could say, hey, what should I eat for dinner? I'll give you ideas for dinner. I mean really anything that you can be using it for. So, again, if you're an AB teachers club member, this episode airs at the beginning of April, so this research paper, or this research unit rather, is going to be available available for you on May 1st. So it's coming out soon. So mark your calendars. And it includes even more fun than what Jessica explained, like there's a lot more obviously as a part of it.

Speaker 1: 16:05

And if you're not a part of the AB teachers club, we hope we at least inspired you to come up with your own spin on this. You know, instead of your typical research project, that maybe you are used to using with your students. So thank you guys so much for joining us for this episode and we hope that it was helpful for you. If it was, come let us know over on Instagram at ebacademics.

Speaker 1: 16:24

And the next episode next week we are talking about actually something really interesting and a little bit different, but we are looking at five different countries around the world and we're looking at what they are doing to support their teachers in the classrooms as a part of, like, mentorship and, you know, getting into the profession, all that stuff, so the induction programs and things along those lines. So we'll be walking you through that next week and it might be one of those episodes that you want to consider sharing with your principal or with your admin, because there are a lot of great takeaways that, even though we don't do them here as a whole, right across all of our states in the US, a lot of these things could be applied within your own classroom, at your own district, at your own school site. So we will see you guys next week on the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us, everybody, and we'll see you later.

Speaker 3: 17:12

Bye everyone Bye everybody.