Crafting an Area of Investigation

Description

In this lesson, students pause in their reading of Guns, Germs, and Steel, and begin to focus on specific aspects of an issue to craft areas of investigation. Students then engage in a pre-search activity to begin gathering sources for further research. This work develops students’ proficiency for posing general and specific questions, finding relevant sources, navigating a wide pool of potential sources, and validating the depth of and their interest in their proposed issues. Students use the Pre-Search Tool to record relevant information about the sources they find, including the author’s name, issue, source, location, publication date, and general content/key ideas.