The last step is to actually write your report. If all the other steps have been completed correctly than this will be the easiest step. I would teach this lesson by using Ted’s outline.
Ted must begin by writing the introduction to his report. The introduction tells the reader what the report will be about. Start an introduction for the students and have them complete it using your outline and notes to help.
Then use Ted’s outline to write the report. To make this lesson easier, it would be a good idea to provide each student with the agreed upon outline from the last step so that everyone is working with the same material.
The students should now be instructed to write a paragraph for each main topic listed after a Roman numeral. The subtopics and important details should be used to write a complete paragraph about each main idea. The teacher should check the students’ work to make sure that it is done correctly.
Once all the students have written a sample of Ted’s report have them share it with the class. Depending on the students in your class they can each read their own or if they are shy the teacher could read them without mentioning which report belongs to whom. I feel that it is essential that the students are exposed to their classmates style of writing. This will expand their horizon and make their reports more alive.
In this last step the students must be taught two other lessons. One lesson is how to list your sources and the second lesson is in proofreading.
When you list your sources you are writing a bibliography. A bibliography lists the books, magazines, newspapers, and other sources that gave the writer the information. A bibliography is usually the last page of a report.
A bibliography is written in a certain way. A sample should be distributed to each student to show them how to set up a bibliography for books, magazines, newspaper, encyclopedia, and personal interview sources. The sample could be set up as follows:
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Book
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Asimov, Isaac.
Space Dictionary
.
-
____
Scholastic Book Services, 1969.
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Personal Interview
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Sherman, Jane. Oakwood Junior High School,
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____
Dayton, Ohio. Interview, 3 March 1977.
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Magazine Article
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Hunter, Maureen. “Facts About the Moon.”
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____
News Citizen
, March 1977, pp.6-8.
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Encyclopedia
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World Book Encyclopedia,
1977 edition,
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____
“Government of Canada.”
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Newspaper
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“Amazing Amazon Region.”
New York Times
,
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____
12 January 1969, sec. 4, p. 11.
Some activities that could be done to reinforce types of sources are:
Make flash cards of different bibliographies and have the class decide which source it is a bibliography for.
Or, give the class a list of sources and have them write it in the correct form for that source.
Or, list all the sources in correct form and have them arrange them on a page.
Once this is done then have the students use the lesson from the catalog cards and the notes from Ted’s report and write a bibliography for Ted’s report.
Lastly, we have proofreading. A report should always be proofread before handing in. When you proofread, read your report carefully to see if there are any mistakes. The most important mistakes to look for are the following:
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spelling mistakes
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missing capital letters
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missing punctuation marks
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incomplete sentences
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paragraphs that don’t make sense
The best type of practice activity to do for this is to give the students sample paragraphs with errors in them and have them rewrite them without any errors. To make this more exciting you can divide the class into two teams or groups and make a group project out of it. The first team or group to come up with all the errors corrected wins.
Now the students are ready to work on the last step of their reports. Have them use the outlines and notes to write their reports. Then have them make a bibliography page and lastly have them proofread their report before handing it in to the teacher.
In conclusion, this unit using the five steps choosing a topic, researching the topic, taking notes on the research, outlining the notes and writing the report is an excellent beginning to report writing for the foreign-born. After this unit is taught then the students could eventually get into writing lengthier reports and term papers. I have researched this unit thoroughly and made it as simple as possible to follow. I hope it is a success in your classroom.