Assignment 3: SIRS

In the fall my AP seniors write a position research paper based on issues from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. For example, since Victor Frankenstein creates life in his laboratory, one of the timely topics is cloning: pros and cons. My students must take a position on the topic. One of the sites I direct them to is SIRS Issues Researcher. It offers reliable full-text articles on both the pro and con side of a topic. My students find useful information to use in defending their position.  Our high school librarian has made life even easier for all of our students by providing a direct link to SIRS Issues Researcher. Students can access it from school or home.

For this assignment I went to SIRS Issues Researcher to find a topic for myself. First of all, the list of current topics is amazing! My students can find lots of information on ANY current, controversial topic for their research papers!  I decided to research Zero Tolerance. The two sides of the issue are stated at the top of the page as YES and NO.  The YES statement is "Zero-tolerance rules make students and teachers feel safer while they are at school." The NO statement is "Zero tolerance rules often lead to harsh penalties for minor infractions." Just having the pros and cons stated like that helps students understand what the issue is and that there are two sides to it.  Each side has three articles listed. Just click on the titles.

Next on the page is a list of many more related articles. Each has a summary. One of the coolest features is the icon beside each article that indicates the source of the article: web, newspaper, book, magazine. The total is 57 articles!

On the YES-side was an excellent article on bullying. Like so many other schools, bullying is an issue we're dealing with right now. The author, Daniel Weddle, started, "When I was a high school teacher, we had a saying: Put out matches, not forest fires. One child making fun of another was a lighted match. A student throwing a punch in the hallway was a forest fire. We worried about the little acts that led to larger acts, and we responded early, while we could still prevent a child from getting hurt." His article had me hooked immediately!  At our high school every teacher participates in a book read and discussion. My group is reading a book about bullying. At our next discussion I'm going to share this great article. But before our next meeting, I'll do more research here because it looks like there are many, many more good articles to read.