INTERLINK Curriculum Guide
Course Details RW5
In this level, students fine-tune their writing skills, improving their syntactical accuracy and expanding the kinds of writing they are able to do. They also continue to work on and synthesizing information from a variety of sources. Students read and discuss authentic materials, focusing on content and gaining more awareness of such underlying factors as style, tone and purpose. Upon completing this level, they should be capable of understanding most of the content of their academic texts, taking good notes from lectures, and meeting the challenge of academic writing. This means that the focus is on content, as in a regular academic class.
Benchmarks of Completion of Level 5:
Demonstrate ability
to:
a. understand college-level
reading material
b. write a competent
college-level essay (in class)
Core Projects
for RW 5
RW 5 Portfolio Project: Research Paper
Project Summary: This project focuses on academic writing (although for non-academic students it can be modified into a more practical rather than academic research-driven report such as an I-Search paper). Writing a research paper encompasses reading and critical thinking skills, library and research skills, competent writing, organization, revision, computer literacy, awareness of what constitutes plagiarism, and a variety of other skills and knowledge. This project allows students an opportunity to work in their major field (if that is the research area selected) and to produce work similar to what will be required of them in college classes. It may be helpful to set deadlines for different phases of the paper (thesis, outline, bibliography, first draft, etc.) to make sure suitable progress is being made. The content of a portfolio for the research paper would include notes, outlines, revisions and all of the individual pieces that have helped produce the final product. As is the case for the Portfolio Project at every level, the central focus is still writing ability and other aspects of the project (including preoccupation with the topic itself or such peripheral elements as citation format) should always be secondary to the objective of improving students' writing skills.
The development of writing skills is primarily a process of growth rather than addition of new elements. That is to say, students do not so much learn different skills at different levels as continue to improve skills already present albeit in only a rudimentary or underdeveloped form. Skills such as paraphrasing and writing to an audience are not absent in beginning level writing, but become more refined and sophisticated in higher levels. It is important to remember that the teacher's job is not to "teach" skills, but rather to help students acquire them. Some of the skills worked on in the course of this project are listed below (the list is not comprehensive) to help teachers make the best use of this project.
Skills
practiced in this level:
· Project management: In writing a research
paper, students undertake a large project involving many different facets including
selection of a topic, forming a thesis, writing an outline, finding materials,
compiling a bibliography, and organizing ideas - as well as a good deal of writing.
·
Critical thinking: Sources must be analyzed in terms of their reliability and
perspective and also in terms of relevance to the thesis of the paper.
·
Independent learning: much of the work involved in writing a research paper is
done out of class so the student is responsible for doing whatever has to be done
to gather data and learn about the selected topic.
· Note-taking: Students
research their topic using appropriate sources and devise an effective system
for keeping notes on relevant data for possible inclusion in the research paper.
·
Improvement in skills listed for previous levels
RW 5 Independent Reading Project
The specific activities and materials for this project are determined by teacher and students, but the description of the parameters and goals of the project should be carefully reviewed.
The specific activities and materials for this
project are determined by teacher and students, but the description
of the parameters and goals of the project should be carefully reviewed.