Steering The Course for Grades 9-12 – British Columbia OER

Steering The Course for Grades 9-12 Strategies for Reading, Researching, Writing and Other Essential Skills: Gathering, Organizing, and Presenting Information.

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Open School BC provides educational resources and tools that are free and licensed under creative commons. These resources are designed to help K–12 students in learning, adult learners, and for parents and teachers as aids for teaching their students.

Visit their website at http://www.openschool.bc.ca/ or see more books here on FKB in our Open Schools BC category.

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Organizational Skills
A Study Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Independent Study Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Managing Courses Effectively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Reading Skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Being an Active Reader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 6
Being a Critical Reader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Reading Instructions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Writing Skills
Writing a Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The Writing Process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Pre-Write. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Write. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
A. Paragraph Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
B. Multi-paragraph Composition (Essay) Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Reflective Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Research Skills
Conducting Research for a Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Searching the Internet Effectively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Citing Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Examples of Works Cited (MLA Style). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Visual Presentation Skills
Using Graphic Organizers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Creating a Visual Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
How to Read Visual Texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
How to Read a Chart or Graph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Communication Skills
Communicating with Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Communicating in Online Discussion Boards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
How to Respond to Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Sample from Steering The Course for Grades 9-12

Reading Skills

Being an Active Reader

Being an active reader is an important skill for students. Active reading helps students process and retain course material. The act of reading passages can be broken into three stages:

Stage	Action	Skill
Before Reading	Students think about why they are reading, what they already know about what they are reading, and what they think the article or story may be about.	Predicting
While Reading	Students think about what they have learned so far and what they will continue to learn as they read. Predicting They also make themselves aware of what questions they still have.	Questioning
After Reading	Students think about what they have read, making connection to themselves, the world around them and whatever work / assignment they might now have to complete.	Reflecting and Connecting

This reading strategy is based on active reading: reading that requires the learner to think about the information while they read. Reading in this way is far more effective than just reading a passage, wondering what was actually said, and then having to read it again.

Being a Critical Reader

A critical reader knows how to separate fact from opinion. We encounter facts and opinions in combination in most of what we read. For example, in a newspaper there are factual news stories about a car accident in one section and then a movie review in another. Still other articles might give both the facts about the latest Vancouver
Canucks game and an opinion about how the team played that night.

So to start, where would students expect to find more factual information?

• Textbook or diary?
• Web blog, or automobile owner’s manual?

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