Teaching research skills and writing in your middle school ELA class is now broken down step-by-step in a scaffolded and differentiated writing unit. This unit includes 20 done-for-you lesson plans and daily teacher lesson slide presentations with all content and examples broken down. 

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Each lesson is quick and easy to set up, and I have done ALL the work for you. You could even leave these lesson plans for subs. Look at your daily lesson plans and pull up the accompanying teacher slides and you have everything you need. 

Here's what's included:

• Research Writing Unit: 20 Lesson Plans
• 18 teacher slide presentations to accompany each lesson (print and digital) 
• Daily Lesson Plan pacing guides, prep breakdown, and nonfiction articles information 
• Printable and digital research reference pages for students
• Digital research student writing notebooks
• Editable research grading rubrics

Your students will actually learn how to research because each lesson is scaffolded and takes them through a step-by-step process for conducting research. Students will be walked through formulating a research question and all the steps they need to work through to answer their research questions.

The lessons build up in difficulty to eventually have students write a full-on research paper as well as create a research presentation. 

The unit starts with students learning all about formulating their research question, finding credible and relevant sources, and compiling the information to be organized into a paper. Students will be learning and immediately applying skills like quoting, paraphrasing, blending quotes, and checking the credibility of sources to write a final research paper and presentations. 

Students take their notes and information from their research and turn them into a final research paper and then a presentation to be delivered to their classmates. 

You will use the teaching presentations to teach students specific research skills like checking for credible sources, blending quotes, crafting a research statement, quoting and paraphrasing, relevant evidence and logical reasons, transition words, and more. 

Each lesson plan and set of teaching slides are broken down step-by-step for teachers and each example is broken down with explanations for students.

Prep is quick and easy... Just print the student pages, gather the materials listed, review the lesson plans, display the teaching slides, teach the lesson, and you're ready for middle schoolers who can think, discuss, and write critically about real-life issues.

The 20 lesson plans are:

1. Research Lesson Day One: Elements of a Research Paper 
2. Research Lesson Day Two: Formulating a Research Question 
3. Research Lesson Day Three: Credible Sources 
4. Research Lesson Day Four: Using Search Terms Effectively 
5. Research Lesson Day Five: Curating Credible Sources 
6. Research Lesson Day Six: Creating Related Questions 
7. Research Lesson Day Seven: Following a Standard Citation Format 
8. Research Lesson Day Eight: Gathering Relevant Information from Multiple Sources (2-3 days) 
9. Research Lesson Day Nine: Quoting and Paraphrasing + Avoiding Plagiarism 
10. Research Lesson Day Ten: Research Statement + Organizing a Research Paper 
11. Research Lesson Day Eleven: Research Paper Introduction + Demonstrating Understanding 
12. Research Lesson Day Twelve: Organizing a Research Paper's Sections + Paper Structure 
13. Research Lesson Day Thirteen: Organizing a Research Paper's Sections 2 + Blending Quotes 
14. Research Lesson Day Fourteen: Organizing a Research Paper's Sections 3 + Quoting and Paraphrasing Review 
15. Research Lesson Day Fifteen: Research Paper Conclusions 
16. Research Lesson Day Sixteen: Editing vs. Revising
17. Research Lesson Day Seventeen: Publishing Final Drafts (2-3 days) 
18. Research Lesson Day Eighteen: Research Projects (2-3 days) 
19. Research Lesson Day Nineteen: Research Project Presentation  (2-3 days) 
20. Research Lesson Day Twenty: Writing Celebration

The explicit research concepts taught are:

1. Elements of a Research Project 
2. Credible Sources
3. Using Search Terms Effectively 
4. Logical Reasons
5. Relevant Evidence
6. Quoting vs. Paraphrasing 
7. Research Paper Introductions
8. Research Paper Conclusions 
9. Transition Words
10. Blending Quotes
11. MLA Formatting
12. Editing vs. Revising