I found K.MacrorieÍs approach to researching information to be very interesting. I liked that he was flexible in the information gathering process. He seemed to emphasize that the information needed to be real and personal. I agree with him that ñ the best searchers write both subjectively and objectively and write so that professionals and the public can understand their searches and profit from them.î I liked how personally involved the searcher becomes using a variety of sources for information, with the most up to date being an interview with someone involved with the subject being researched. This approach gives more life to the papers. They are readable but accurate.
I would like to incorporate some of these ideas into my 7th grade discovery project. I plan to try his idea about allowing enoug Îh time. I think I will time the process so students will have time to interview someone or get materials from an embassy or other source. Another idea that I have is to see if we could locate a keyboard pal through the internet. Especially the first time, that would take time also. I am also wondering if we might do a preliminary project with the careers course that is going to be offered next year. Perhaps students could search out a career and write it up to be shared with others. Maybe we could begin a career resource book.
I think this book is of interest to all teachers of writing. There are suggestions of activities to use to build toward the I-Search Paper at the end of each chapters. The chapters each explain a purpose of a part of the paper. This is a research and writing approach that is valuable in real life. This is a book that I plan to purchase for my own professional use.