in social studies this week i've been teaching my fledgling 5th graders about bibliographies and citing sources. this is hard. i don't even know how to cite sources without checking with guidelines. i'd like to say that they're exceeding my expectations and succeeding with flying colors, however, they're not. they don't get it. at all. regardless of their grasp of the citation concept, to give them some practice, i gave them a current event assignment. they had to find an article on a current event (i did allow them to include "sports" in "events"), summarize the article, and cite the source.
there is SO much going on in the world so between the global economic struggles, the war in libya (and subsequent refugees entering italy and other nearby countries), the japan earthquake and resulting tsunamis and nuclear threats (MAN i need to watch some news), among other things, i figured my students would be able to find good articles for their assignment. they would get practice with summarizing and citing sources AND learn some things about the world around them.
needless to say, i was incredibly amused this morning while reviewing the assignments when i learned that students chose articles on topics such as the rising tiger population in india, bananas being thrown at brazilian soccer players, the launch of the ipad 2, and my personal favorite, "hole in usairways plane caused by bullet, sources say."
say what?!
did i mention that 6 girls are absent today with lice? this means i have a class that is 80% boys. AND it's april fools day? yeah.......
x!
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