Year 7 Inquiry project on Pirates

[Rachel Huskisson Participant]

Hi all,

I have an opportunity to “FOSILise” a research project that our Y7 english students do on pirates. I have attached the current task sheet and wonder if I can pick your brains about how to re format it as an inquiry question. There is no real aim as far as I am aware as to the learning other than they study Treasure Island as the set text prior to the project. For this reason, I think they can come up with their own questions but I wonder if they need a little more guidance. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

Attachments:

1. U3-Library-Pirate-Activity-Sheet.docx

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Rachel, thanks for sharing this project. This is very exciting. I would look at the initial inquiry planning form to guide you to the questions you might first need to ask the teacher. It really is best if they can tell you what their learning objectives are for their students.

I would narrow the options they can choose from down a little as they will need to spend too much time reading all of it to decide what they would like to focus on. Two or three choices at the most.

I am sure that there are others who can think of some better questions than me but here are my suggestions to get the discussion going. You need to think about putting the students into the heart of the research so questions like…

Would you have to be a bad person to make a good pirate?

What would your life be like if you were a pirate?

Which you would prefer to be and why? A corsair, privateer, buccaneer or a pirate?

I hope this helps.

 

[Rachel Huskisson Participant]

Thank you Elizabeth, this is a real help. I did wonder if there was a bit too much to look at. I had a thought about playing the song “Its a pirates life for me” (I think its called that!) and getting them to think about if a pirates life would be for them so “What would your life be like if you were a pirate?” might be a good one to go with.

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Sounds like a great idea Rachel. I would also adapt one of the inquiry journals to give you a starting point that you can show your teacher. Use something like Why could they cure the Black Death,  that you can edit with your own question and resources on page 6-10. You could also change the focus at the end to be more about what they found rather than ranking reasons for the order of importance to what the teacher might like them to focus on.

Why couldn’t they cure the Black Death

I would also narrow down how they are to present the information. Too much choice again wastes time.

 

[Rachel Huskisson Participant]

Thanks, this is a big help. I will keep you posted!

[Matt Participant]

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for sharing the assignment your grade 7 students would be working on. Earlier this year I enjoyed watching The Lost Pirate Kingdom on Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/de-en/title/81035118 I am certain this is a topic your year 7 students will enjoy learning about.

Some thoughts that I had for this were:

1. Arrange the resources according to the inquiry cycle. Which ones are good for gaining an initial overview of the life of a pirate (connect and wonder stage)? Which ones are more specialized which students can select from once they have developed a unique inquiry question to explore (for the investigate stage)? Doing this could help to limit the resources provided as Elizabeth has already mentioned.

2. Select a library resource to introduce to your students to use during the assignment. Does your library encyclopedia have a good article about the life of pirates. Could you list all of the books students can borrow from the library about pirates? You want to get your students used to using your school library for assignments and so using the collaboration to reinforce the habit of them using the library for research can help build this habit.

3. What FOSIL skills do you want your students to focus on during this inquiry? There are many skills that students need to develop over their school careers. Which one do you want them to hone in on during this unit? I imagine this would be done through a discussion with the teacher you are collaborating with and be written on the initial planning sheet.

Thank you for sharing and best of luck with this unit of inquiry.

Kind regards,

Matt

 

[Rachel Huskisson Participant]

Update on the project

Hi Folks,

I thought I would just update you all on how this project has been going. I ran it first time when I was doing library lessons on my own so it was difficult to really collaborate but I did use the FOSIL framework to simplify it as suggested above. I put together a dashboard on my LMS with a few websites, all of the books and a podcast. The question I settled on was “Is it a pirate’s life for me?” using a great video from the rmg to introduce the project, it really got the students engaged. Because of time constraints, we did the Connect stage verbally, I asked them what they already knew about pirates before sending them off to consider questions they might want to ask in order to decide whether it was a pirate’s life for them. I got them to read the pirate books for the rest of this lesson. The next lesson, I introduced the dashboard, and using the investigative journals  https://fosil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/LS-001100-Investigative-Journal-Print.pdf, they began to investigate and record their findings. The Construct phase was harder to include, time limits meant we did have to move onto the Express stage, they were tasked with creating either an advert for people to join a pirate crew or a warning leaflet on the dangers depending on how they finally answered the original question. They had to include the facts they had found including citing sources. They created some really creative work and seemed to really enjoy it. My reflections are, that the Construct phase needed some attention, and there was no real reflection on their part. This year, I was working with English teachers, some of whom got it and some who didn’t. With time always being an issue, I find that research for English teachers can be a case of “have a quick look on Google and see what you can find”. The challenge is slowing the process down in order for it to be a meaningful learning experience. The graphic organisers were a hit with one teacher and she has made use of them in further research based lessons.

Please feel free to add comments or feedback! This is all pretty new to me and I know there are definitely ways to improve it. One thing I will definitely do next time is just limit them to one really good website, time is just wasted when they have too many websites/resources.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Thank you for this update, Rachel – you share valuable insight.

I am currently reading Teaching as a Conserving Activity by Neil Postman (1979), which revisits some of the ideas in Teaching as a Subversive Activity, co-authored with Charles Weingartner in 1969. In the decade between the two books, Postman observed two pitfalls facing inquiry (pp. 213-214):

The first is that too many teachers have used the inquiry method as an excuse to bypass the teaching of any systematic content. … It is, from my point of view, unacceptable in our present situation to have students learn inquiry skills without having them applied to important subjects. … A second reason … is that in the hands of a teacher with a technocrat mentality, the inquiry method loses its spirit and is reduced to a set of mechanical procedures.

These two pitfalls face us still today, and I am increasingly convinced that it is our deep understanding of inquiry as a stance [or spirit, in Postman’s terms] of wonder and puzzlement that gives rise to a dynamic learning process of coming to know and understand the world through subject area content that enables the library/ian to help their classroom colleagues avoid these pitfalls and so become integral to a collaborative educational process.

This, however, will take as long as it takes and demands of us perseverance.

Jenny and I are working with Barbara Stripling on a proposal for the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) national conference in Tampa Bay (19-21 October), which addresses these very issues, which I will share as soon as we know the outcome.

Wishing you continued success.

P.S. For some reason your reply above was pending until I released it – if any of your posts do not appear immediately, please let me know and I will investigate.

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