Animal Research, Part 1

One of our fourth-grade writing genres is a non-fiction report. This week, we kicked off our non-fiction writing unit by selecting animals to research. Students considered a few different animals, thought about which one made them wonder the most, and made their decision. Personally, I decided to research owls since I think they're beautifully mysterious birds! (And I also have a small obsession with owl jewelry and knick knacks!) While I want students to research authentic questions, for the sake of this project and the level of support most students require when doing research, I made the decision that all students would research the habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms of the animal they chose.

The next step of their research process was to brainstorm where a researcher can find information. We will be using three resources for our research. First, we discussed non-fiction books.

By reading chapter titles in a table of contents, a researcher will need to infer where to find the information he or she needs. I modeled for students how I inferred where there might be information about an owl's habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms.

Then I recorded those page numbers on my notes sheet. Essentially, this is pre-writing (creating a plan for what we will write about.) This also helped us eliminate pages that we inferred probably wouldn't have information about my three subtopics.

Students then went into their own books to write down the names of chapters/page numbers they inferred would have information about their animals' habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms.

Here is a short clip of our kiddos utilizing their table of contents to infer the location of information about the habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms of their animals.

 

I also modeled how to use an index when doing research. I circled topics that I inferred would have information about the habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms of an owl.

 Then I recorded all the topics/page numbers onto my notes sheet for each of my three sub-topics about owls.

Students applied their learning by using the index from their own books to find and record more topics and page numbers.

Using an index is a helpful way to quickly find the information you want!

Here is one student's sheet so far.  He also has the second page filled out with all the page numbers for each of the chapter names and the book topics that he inferred would have information on the habitat, diet, and defense mechanisms of moose.

By the end of writing, students had a plan for what pages they will search during our next writer's workshop.
Also, if you're interested in the sheets I created for students to use for this research project, visit my TpT store. I recently posted them! :)To see the next part of our process where students gather notes from a non-fiction book, an encyclopedia, and a website, visit this next blog posting (Parts 2, 3, & 4).