I vividly remember the joys of writing a research report in school. Sitting among my collection of books and magazines and armed with a pile of note cards, I was determined to succeed. However, when I attempted to organize the mass of cards, I was lost. There had to be a better way! Thanks to IEW, I have finally found it in Unit 6: Summarizing Multiple References. Unit 6 builds on Unit 4 by using the idea of topics: one topic per paragraph.  Once students have decided on their topics, they can begin to collect facts.  In Unit 4 students took notes from one source text. Now students will take notes from multiple sources, learning how to select the facts they want to use and how to arrange them. Instead of using piles of notecards, details are collected directly into an outline, creating one outline per source text. The beauty of the system is that each outline for a single topic can be created on one sheet of paper, keeping everything neat and organized. After creating one outline per source text for that topic, students choose some facts from each outline and combine them into a single fused outline. From the fused outline, students can easily write a paragraph, complete with a topic sentence and a clincher sentence. This process is repeated for each topic and voila! A research paper is born. Since the focus of Unit 6 is on organizing facts, introductions and conclusions will not be written yet. They will be tackled in Unit 8, so file the completed Unit 6 compositions until then. In the meantime, middle and high school students can learn how to manage citation while creating their paragraphs. Since the details and their sources are identified in the various outlines, it is easy to keep track of where the facts came from. Just as stylistic techniques can be taught one by one, methods of quotation such as direct and indirect quotes can be taught incrementally. There is no need to shy away from the research report. By assigning three- to four-paragraph reports from three to five sources, teachers can provide students with plenty of tear-free practice reporting on what they are learning. To learn more, click here to watch Andrew's recorded Unit 6 webinar. And click here to download free source texts for Unit 6 research reports.    Jill Pike  is a homeschooling mother of eight and an IEW ® Accomplished Instructor. Serving as moderator of the  IEWFamilies forum, she provides support to thousands of teachers and parents. She has authored many lesson plans offered by the Institute for Excellence in Writing, most recently adapting Anna Ingham's  Blended Sound-Sight Program of Learning  for home educators in the  Primary Arts of Language. After graduating five children, Jill and her husband, Greg, continue to home educate their youngest three in Indiana. Log in or register to post commentsJill Pikes blog Log in or register to post comments