TACKLE TEXT ONE BITE AT A TIME!
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With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, research papers become more prevalent in the secondary classroom. Across all content areas, students often struggle to collect and summarize information during the beginning stages of research. The C.H.o.M.P. strategy challenges students to “bite off,” or extract small pieces of core research information and generate a paraphrased set of notes free of plagiarism. Using this approach, the often daunting process of identifying key information in non-fiction texts is broken down into a set of manageable, less-intimidating steps.
Guinee, K. & Eageton, M. B. (2006). Spinning straw into gold: Transforming information into knowledge during web- based research. English Journal, High School Edition, 95(4), 46-52.
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Mini-Lesson
After finishing the thought-provoking fictional novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, students will begin their culminating research paper in which they must study a religion of their choosing. Rich with extended metaphors and philosophical debate, Life of Pi cleverly demonstrates the dichotomy between faith and scientific objectivity. The protagonist of the novel subscribes to multiple religions and as a Buddhist, Christian, and Hindu, is an advocate for interfaith belief. After selecting one religion to study, students will collect newspaper articles, scholarly articles from academic journals, and other pertinent information which they will read, review, and incorporate into their papers. Twin-texting non-fiction articles with the fictional novel they have just read will challenge them to think more critically about larger, secular topics in relation to Pi’s amazing adventure. Before beginning the writing process, students will use the C.H.o.M.P. writing strategy to both identify important information in their non-fiction articles and paraphrase that information into a cohesive in-text citation to support their exploratory research project.
Connection/Teaching Point: Before introducing the C.H.o.M.P. strategy to students, the teacher will have a brief tutorial on plagiarism. Although many students may be familiar with the serious implications of plagiarism and academic dishonesty, the reality is that some students may be unintentionally plagiarizing because they do not know how to paraphrase correctly. The teacher will visit plagiarism.org on the SMART board, and explore the website with students. After explaining definition of plagiarism the teacher will suggest various citing resources found on the website. Finally, students will be provided with a clear definition and explanation of paraphrasing which they will record in their notes.
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Model/Teach:
Before modeling a correct example or paraphrasing, the
teacher will explain and summarize the C.H.o.M.P. strategy, identifying what
each letter stands for. Employing a popcorn reading strategy, the class will
read “Conjuring Up Our Own Gods,” by T.M. Luhrmann. Using the I.N.S.E.R.T. self-monitoring
strategy, they will annotate the text
after reading through it as a class. After three minutes of silent reading and
self-monitoring with their I.N.S.E.R.T. thinking marks, there will be a brief
whole-class discussion summarizing what the article is about. Next, the teacher
will model the C.H.o.M.P. strategy by going through each of the four steps on
an excerpt of the text projected on the SMART board. While modeling the
strategy and generating a paraphrased version of the text, the teacher will ask
students for input or ask them to talk with a partner about what words should
be crossed out or highlighted. At the completion of modeling the C.H.o.M.P.
strategy, students will work with a partner to begin their active engagement
activity.
Luhrmann, T. (2013). Conjuring Up Our Own Gods. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/ 2013/10/15/opinion /luhrmann-conjuring-up-our-own-gods.html.
Step 1: Cross out small words, such as prepositions and conjunctions.Step 3: Make notes based on the highlighted information by abbreviating, truncating, making lists, using symbols, and drawing instead of writing full sentences.
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Step 2: Highlight important information in the remaining text.Step 4: Put the notes in your own words. (To double-check your work, go to plagiarism.org, insert your paraphrased passage into the WriteCheck website, and see if C.H.o.M.P. worked for you! |
Active Engagement:
For the active engagement portion of this mini-lesson, students will pair up with a student who is studying the same religion that they are. At this point in their research, the class has collected and annotated their articles. Working together, students will briefly skim two of their articles and use their thinking notes to identify excerpts from the text that they want to include in their final paper as paraphrased text. Next, students will complete the C.H.o.M.P. process on their own articles using a template provided by the teacher. To confirm that they did not plagiarize and were successful in paraphrasing their non-fiction texts, students will visit plagiarism.org and double-check their work. Should they need help or additional instruction, the teacher will be circulating the room providing students with comments, assistance, and answers to paraphrasing/research questions.
Link:
Upon completion of the C.H.o.M.P. activity, students will meet in groups with peers who are studying different religions. Each person in the group will share the two sentences that they generated for their paper. After sharing sentences, the class will revisit the objective of the lesson and discuss how to identify main ideas and paraphrase them into a cohesive, academic, and original sentence unique to their own paper. If there is extra time in the class period, students will create Venn diagrams detailing the similarities and differences between the religion that they are studying and the the religions that other students are studying. The Venn diagrams will be used in the next lesson to discuss interfaith in the world today and in The Life of Pi. Students will also have a debate about whether or not Richard Parker (the tiger in Life of Pi) is a "talpa" conjured by the protagonist.