Redkudu

I think you just gave me my focus question! What choices did a person have during the time of the novel, and how are they similar/different to the choices we have today? (I'll have to finesse that a bit.)

This will be the first time they will have done any substantial research in the year, so my plan is this (still developing, so still without a lot of detail):

1. I will provide the students a list of questions to be answered, and the group they will research. We will do an activity of some sort about finding reliable sources, summarizing, citation.

2. We will spend a day or two in the library. Day 1 will be book research, day 2 computer research.

3. Day 3 will be compiling the info in the classroom. I think we will make some sort of class graph - where each group contributes their findings to a graph which will hang on the wall. Probably something like average household income, maybe level of education (or opportunity for higher education?).

4. At this point they will have a good foundation for the time period, and we can begin reading the novel. About halfway through the novel, we'll pause classroom instruction (but not reading) to repeat the process with research from today. Then they will be ready to compile the info into the "report" form I'll specify and turn it in. I think each student should do some written reflection on the focus question. This might also be a good time to review embedding quotes, so they can use data from the research to support their analysis. We can use in-text citation there.

Okay. Now we're cooking. I'm going to think about this some more and come up with the concrete details. I think that at this point I am going to try to build in some sort of research activity into all units for the rest of the year, culminating in a major research paper.