The Research Workshop: Bringing the World Into Your Classroom

Any teacher can develop a research workshop. And in this new, reader-friendly book, Paula Rogovin shows how to do it. Demonstrating how children's interests and questions become the central focus of the curriculum, she offers dozens of easy-to-use techniques for organizing the classroom and the school day to support student research. She also provides explicit guidelines for finding a wide range of resources, fostering family and community involvement, and dealing with assessment, homework, and diverse student interests and abilities. As examples of how to follow the guidelines, two complete research studies are included.

"Inquiry teaching," Rogovin writes, "is interdisciplinary." And her book details how the topics of student research become part of reading, writing, read alouds, math, art, music, social studies, and science activities. The first six chapters lay the foundation, as they answer such questions as: What is inquiry teaching? What is guided research? How can we involve the students' families? How is the classroom organized for guided research? What are some of the specifics regarding the study of writing, reading, and literature in an inquiry classroom? The next two chapters are actual studies from the People at Work research - about people who make or drive vehicles, and about Woody Guthrie. Three additional research studies on health care workers and scientists, dance and dancers, and workers in the clothing industry can be downloaded from the Heinemann website shortly after the book's publication date for only $10.00 apiece.