The Assignment: Historical Diaries

Part I -- Individual Written Project -- Creative - Bound (no binders accepted)
A historical diary project, accompanied by the reading of non-ficton,
is a natural accompaniment to the study of World Literature. In researching and writing diaries from other time periods, students gain a historical context for their reading and a sense of the chronology of the authors and literary works they have studied.

You are living in the year ______ . Choose from the following listed years; only one person per year, please.

Pretend you are a famous scientist, author, artist, musician, philosopher, military person or celebrity keeping a personal diary. Writing in that persona record your activities for a week or longer. Whether paraphrasing or writing the exact words in your diary entries, write the parenthetic citation of the reference source(s) in MLA form. You are also responsible for writing a Works Cited page that will include a minimum of six primary and six secondary sources. I must approve your choice of person.

Everyone will have the following six activities as diary entries: these entries may occur in any order in your journal. You may invent some
of your own entries in addition to these six.

1. You have read or seen a popular writer's latest effort; what is
   the title of the book, essay, play, or poem? (Give or take several years on the exact date of publication.) What will future critics say about this piece of writing? Copy in your diary a quotable phrase of sentence from at least one critic's evaluation of the piece of writing. Possible sources in our library include:
2. You have heard about, seen, or even used a new invention:
   what was it? Do you think it will have much influence on the future?
3. A member of your family is involved in the clothing and shoe business. Which of the latest styles do you prefer? How widespread is the style? Where did it originate?

Choose three of the areas listed below for the fourth, fifth, and sixth entries in your diary.

Part 2 -- Group Online Magazine (4 or 5 people per group) Your magazine will reflect an "Era" of talent

Whenever you start a research or classroom project it is important to plan how you want to accomplish your mission. There are many ways to achieve your goal of an A+ project, but there are also a lot of obstacles in your path. Knowing how to find and evaluate information is a valuable skill and is an essential part of the research process.
The skill is called Information Literacy.

At Westminster High School we recommend the Big 6© and COWS information literacy models for student research. If you make a habit of following these methods, you will successfully navigate reference books, books and non-text material, and not be fooled by false information or overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge available on the Internet.

Use the Big 6 Assignment Organizer © (1999) to help you complete your assignment. It uses the Big 6 format. Follow the directions given in the organizer and by Mrs. Angus. You can type directly on the organizer and then download the information to a disc or print it out. There is a section for each of the six steps of research.

Let's Get Started:

Step #1: Task Definition A good way to get started. What does your teacher want you to do? Make sure you understand the requirements of the assignment. In order to define your task you must form your task around an essential question. Once you have formed your essential question you must decide what information you think you will need to support that question. You do this with supporting questions. To learn more about supporting questions look at "What kinds of questions did you ask today?" Remember there are several types or levels of supporting questions: Memory questions (Level 1), Convergent Thinking questions (Level 2), Divergent Thinking questions (Level 3), and Evaluative questions (Level 4). There is a worksheet
you can print out to help you form your questions. Make sure your supporting questions use more that one type or level of question!

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Step #2: Information Seeking Strategies This means that you need to make a list of all the possible sources of information that
will help you answer the questions you wrote in Task Definition above.

AND:

Step #3: Location & Access Figure out where you will get these sources. Beside each source, write its location. If it is a web site, list its web address. Try to use those that your teacher or librarian have linked or book marked. This will save you time. If your source is a person, figure out how you will contact him or her and make a note of this.

For Step #2 and Step #3 you should use the COWS information literacy model. COWS is an acronym to help you remember the
ORDER you should look for information.

And if all else fails:

Lets look at each of these and how you can find and use them for your research.

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C =

When doing research, always start with current reference books, textbooks and non-fiction library books. Learn some basic information about your subject and start a list of "keywords" you can use to gain more information on your topic. Use the library's OPAC to check your resources.

Before you use OPAC you should make a list of all the keywords you could use in researching your subject.

Remember: When doing research you need to look at the second
page of cataloging and review the "notes" section of the page to find out information about the book.  Also use the "subject" section of the page and look at the subject headings listed for the book.  Using these subject headings is an excellent way to narrow or broaden your subject search.  They can also provide you with additional keywords to use in searching for your topic.  Use your bookbag  while doing research using OPAC.  It helps keep your research on track, provides you bibliographic information for your project, and will save you time
in locating information in the library.
If you have forgotten how to use the library's OPAC check out the How to Use OPAC from the Library Information page of this site. Be sure to check out the Reference Section of the library first for specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases and almanacs to start your project.

Hints!

Some of the Reference Books you could start with are:

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Use these resources every day! If you need them the usernames and passwords are provided. Our online resources are:

• The Gale Group, (Username:west60137 Password:west60137)
• Web Feet, ( Borrower's I.D.: west01196)
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online, (Use this resource first) (Username: hbuhsd Password: surfcity)

and

The Gale Group resources has five different databases: (All will
provide you some information on your topic.)

• Student Resource Center-Gold,
• Student Resource Center-Health Module,

  Student Edition,
• Opposing Viewpoints,

and

To learn more about each of the databases their descriptions are
listed below:

Student Resource Center-Gold (SRC-Gold) is the librarians' choice
for "if I could only take one database to a desert island list, Student Resource Center Gold would be it." This database has a little bit of everything. It pulls form over 1,000 magazines, newspapers, and reference books. It also has primary sources and thousands of multimedia graphics (even some video clips!).

SRC-Health Module provides everything you wanted to know about health but were afraid to ask. An excellent science resource that doesn't try to sell you something and gives you answers to questions about health that would normally be blocked by the HBUHSD filters. A database on medical and health-related topics that include diseases, treatments, diagnostic equipment, and major historical figures in the fields of medicine, chemistry, biology, and related areas. Includes a timeline describing over 500 events from the history of medicine and health sciences, and 300 photographs and diagrams.

Student Edition, (Formerly SuperTOM), is designed for high school students, with access to a variety of indexed and full-text magazines, newspapers and reference books for information on current events,
the arts, science, popular culture, health, people, government, history, sports and more.

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center draws on the acclaimed
social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference sources to provide a complete one=stop source for information on social issues.  Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to web sites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

The Virtual Reference Library has actual reference books online that you can view as a PDF or web document, your choice. Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, dictionaries, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7.

Books In Our Collection:

Dictionary of American History, 3rd ed., 10 vols., 2003

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2 ed., 23 vols., 1998-2004

American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present 2nd ed., 4v, 2000

Nonfiction Classics for Students 5v, 2001

Novels for Students, v. 1 - 24

Poetry for Students, v. 1 - 24

Encyclopedia of Bioethics 3rd ed., 5v, 2004

WEB FEET is a research tool designed to help you save time and find the best resources available on the Internet.  It is not a search engine, but rather collections of pre-selected sites reviewed by librarians, educators, subject-area specialists, and editors.  It offers you the best Web sites for thousands of curriculum areas, general knowledge topics, and common personal interests.   Marina subscribes to WEB FEET Core collection, which has web sites for middle school to adult.  This site has a Borrower ID that you need to get from Mrs. Bowen, the librarian, Mrs. Rice, the Library Assistant, or your teacher.

The Encyclopedia Britannica Online is our newest database for our school. It includes:

Using keywords search up to three sets of encyclopedias. This
resource also has streaming video.

World Geography Online will provide you everything you ever wanted to know about any country in the world. The CLIOview section will allow you to statistically compare countries in a variety of areas. This site will also provide daily UPI news stories focusing on events from around the world. Feature Stories, Terms of the Day, and Holidays & Celebrations are also included as part of the web site.

If you need help in getting the most out of any of these resources, check the "Search Tips" for each. 

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W = (Pre-selected web sites)
A webliography is similar to a bibliography only it's on the web. Since each of you is doing a different topic a webliography cannot be
created for you. However, you have an excellent online resource that can act as your personal webliography.

All of the web sites listed in this resource have been reviewed by librarians, teachers, or subject specialists and are good to use in research. Click on the web title and it will tell you what you can find on the site as well as what grade level should use the site. You will also find additional keywords, and Dewey and LC numbers to help you locate information in the library that is on the same subject. The URLs listed will take you directly to the site.

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and if all else fails --

S =
Once you have learned about your subject by visiting all of the books, online programs, and web sites, and you still need more information it is time to search the web. BEWARE! Search engines are not all created equal and you need to learn what types of information each will provide and how that information is presented. Take a few minutes and check out the links listed below. You will also need to know about the "invisible web" and how to access its information.

Introduction to Search Tools

Search engines

How to Find a Specialized Search Engine for Your Topic

Invisible web

If you use a search engine to find material you must always evaluate the site you wish to use. To help you in evaluating your site use the Web Site evaluation Guide.

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And now back to the Big 6!

Step #4: Use of Information Engage the source (read it, listen to it, view it, touch it!) and take out the relevant information. If you
can't understand any of it, be sure to ask Mrs. Angus to help you. It's OK not to understand, it's not OK not to ask for help. Make sure
that you check out "Ideas About Note Taking and Citing Sources" from the Big 6.

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Step #5: Synthesis You will need to:

• Organize information from multiple sources
• Present the information

A Writing Process Organizer can be printed out and used to develop a successful writing project!

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Step #6: Evaluation To evaluate your product you will need to:

Here are some additional pages and sites to help you put your paper together and evaluate your product.

Style Guides
To find out how to cite a source go to the MLA Guide and/or the Help with Citing Sources (Internet) guide. The Landmark Citation Machine
is also an excellent resource for all types of citations. You can also use the Toolbox of the Gale online database and find a citing online reference works section. Each article in the Encyclopedia Britannica Online and the Gale Group online have how to cite the article either
at the bottom or top of the article.

Copyright Information
Always check your information against copyright laws to make sure you are not violating any rules and are not accused of plagiarism. Copyright Information 

The Big 6 Rubric
This is a rubric (guideline) to help you understand the effort you need to put into the process of doing research. If you do not understand a task ask your teacher or Mrs. Bowen, the librarian. Both will be able to help you. Click Here for the Big 6 Rubric.

Editing Checklist
This is a guideline to use to edit your paper for errors. Print it out to use as you proofread your paper. Click Here for checklist.

Research Project Final Evaluation Form
This is a form that either students or teachers can use to evaluate research projects. Click Here for the Evaluation Form. Print it out and use it as you evaluate your project.

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