Mini Lesson Teaching Point Students will use Gale in Context through Discus Kids to

search for an article on their topic.

Materials Writing notebooks, Chromebooks, pencils, and students’
sticky notes with ideas on topics.
Connection Yesterday we wrote flash drafts on our topics that we
brainstormed on immigration. Today, we will begin finding
out more information to revise and add to our writing.
Teach Today I want to teach you that when researchers have an idea
of a topic they want to research, they have to be careful
about where to search first. Sometimes if we just Google it,
we won’t necessarily get the best information because there
is so much out there on the web. However, if we use an
electronic library, like Discus, we will get the best online
sources because it is suitable for students your age. For
example, if I type in Immigration in Google, I get many
different websites. Some even discuss immigration today.
However, if I go to Discus Kids, choose Gale in Context, then I
am provided with a list of books articles, magazines, and news
articles. They have authors and dates of publications, and are
free of ads.
Active Engagement With your partner, I want you to think of a topic that we have
learned about on immigration. It might be one that you were
able to draft about yesterday or another topic that you have
not written about. Search for that topic and see how many
different sources are available in Gale in Context.
Walk around, pointing out how the articles provide us with an
author, a date of publication, and are ad free. Also, call out
the topics that students are searching, in order to guide
students who may be struggling.
Link After searching with your partner, you are now ready to begin
researching on your own. You may take notes in your writing
notebook today so that you will be able to revise your drafts
later. Remember that you will need to research and write
about five different topics for this research assignment.