Standard 6: Research

Students will engage in inquiry to acquire, refine, and share knowledge.

10.6.R.2 Students will synthesize the most relevant information from a variety of primary and secondary sources (e.g., print and digital), following ethical and legal citation guidelines.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will follow specific formal paper guidelines.
• Students will gather a variety of sources to write a formal paper.
• Students will use both print and non-print sources to write a formal paper.
• Students will strictly follow citation formatting for their formal paper.  

• Teachers provide guidelines for citation format.
• Teachers provide students the opportunity to find and evaluate a variety of resources for a formal paper.
• Teachers provide students the opportunity to write.
• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback regarding sources and citations. 

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights

• The intention of this standard is that students learn about primary and secondary sources and then extrapolate and logically organize information from them.

• Students should be able to read primary/secondary sources and select the information that best supports their thesis.

• Primary source: firsthand account of an event or a time period written or created during that time period (examples: Diary of Anne Frank, Dorothea Lange’s photographs, a newspaper article about Hurricane Katrina).

• Examples of primary sources: interviews, journals, autobiographies

• Secondary source: an interpretation or analysis of a primary source (examples: a book about diaries kept during the Holocaust, a book about Great Depression photography, an op-ed about how New Orleans handled the Hurricane Katrina aftermath from a later date).

• Examples of primary sources: biographies, textbooks, newspapers, magazines

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.