I have the privilege of doing something this semester that I only get to do every once in a while–teach a private or small group of students who have taken many classes with us before how to write a BIG research paper. Most students who start out with us in elementary school of taking CQLA (Character Quality Language Arts) classes follow a protocol similar to this:
We had some definite advantages to raising children and homeschooling during “the stone age”! 🙂 For one thing, we didn’t have many choices of activities, so it was much easier to stay home and build good study habits, household work schedules, and family time. (Obviously, it can still be done today, but we were forced to stay home more in general.) Secondly, we were blissfully unaware of the demanding academics of today. We didn’t know that our kids needed to know everything that is now required to graduate and go to college. We didn’t do labs, advanced math, and other more strenuous academic pursuits with our first born at all. (I’m not saying this was good–I’m just saying it gave us more of a precious commodity that everyone longs for today–time.)
I have had a wonderful time this semester teaching my first official Live Online Class! We just wrapped up our first Research Report–and I thought I would share parts of those two class sessions with my readers. I hope it gives you some insights into how to teach the difficult task of research report writing! I am including the whole two-week lesson for free in a download AND two partial video classes (one live and one recorded since it is a holiday week). Work through this project with your upper level junior high students or high schoolers. I’ll think you’ll be amazed how simple report writing can be with my Overview Source Method and Color-Coded Research Method! And you will love their final product for sure!
I was fortunate to teach my senior high school class of young high school boys how to write an Expository Essay. Since a couple of the boys were sick, I did a Facebook live so that those students could watch it at home and go through their book as I taught. So… I thought I would share it on here and give you some essay teaching tips for young high school students.
Teaching MLA Research Reports is not for the faint of heart. After ten years of writing books with this method, I have worked and reworked the systems until I have some that students truly understand and can follow. They are interactive. They are visual. And they work.
