Teaching Middle School Research Skills

Have you ever assigned your Middle School students a research project and realized they didn’t have the knowledge or skills to find the information they needed?  This happened to me a lot my first few years teaching, so I often just defaulted to lecturing about topics instead of having students do their own research.

It can be easy to just tell your students what you want them to know.  Doing this can fill your student’s brains with knowledge, but it doesn’t really teach them what they need to know, which are the skills to find out the answers for themselves.  Students today have access to more information than ever, so it is our job as teachers to help them sift through that information and help them make sense of it.

Much of my curriculum is set up to have students in expert groups researching a topic that they will learn about and then teach their classmates.  For years, I have used a very structured research method with my middle schoolers to help them think critically about a topic and ask strong research questions.  In an age where students will inevitably be using AI to answer a lot of their questions, coming up with the right questions is an important skill.

I loop with my students and teach them in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade.  It takes a long time to teach and reinforce these skills in 6th grade, but by the time they are in 8th grade, they are absolute pros.  They know how to ask a strong research question, where to look to find the answer, how to organize their research, and how to turn the information that they find into a writing piece or project to share their knowledge with others.

Here are the steps I use to teach and reinforce strong research skills with my middle school social studies students:

Step #1: Create Curiosity with a Hook Activity

Kids are naturally curious. One of the best ways to help your students research is to get them to buy into the research process.  I like to get students thinking about what they might research by showing them small bits of information in chunks that are easy to digest and leave them wanting more information.  Check out this blog post for a few of my favorite hook activities.

Step #2 Ask “Thick” Questions

I find that when students get to choose their own research questions, they are more likely to be invested in finding the answer.  Instead of giving students a list of questions to answer, I have them come up with their own.  After participating in a hook activity, I ask students to create their own questions.  We look at the difference between “Thick” and “Thin” questions, and then students get to create a research question about whatever topic their group is studying.  I use a checklist help students make sure that their question has everything that they need to get started on their research project.

Step #3 Provide Resources

After years of practice, you can let older students loose to do their own research, but I find that younger middle schoolers need lots of guidance and practice of where to look to answer their questions.  I like to give them a step by step guide of where they should look first.  After they have exhausted each resource, they can move to the next one.

1. Textbook- The book has helpful maps, images, and captions. It highlights and defines keywords and organizes information into easily digestible chunks that are written at grade level.

2. Classroom library- If you have access to resources, keep your classroom stocked with lots of fun books that are specific to the topics that you teach. These books often go one step further than the textbook and look at topics more in-depth. If you don’t have many resources in your classroom try visiting your local library to temporarily add to your collection.

3. Provided websites- If your students have access to devices, give them links to curated websites that I have chosen.

4. Internet search- If kids are struggling to find information about their question from the first three options, or they want a challenge to add more research, they can move on to a Google search or AI search. I teach my kids how the identify reliable websites (a lesson for another day). I try to explain that there is nothing wrong with using Google. It is an amazingly powerful tool, but I don’t always want it to be their default tool.

Step #4: Record Research

Once students start finding information from their resources, they record what they are finding in a graphic organizer.  In order to make sure they are fully answering their question, the graphic organizer includes space for who, what, where, when, why, outcome, and supporting details. In my classroom we call it a wwwwwo chart (pronounced woooooo! because what middle schooler doesn't like to say woooo! in class?)

This information checklist serves many purposes.  It helps students process what they are reading and make decisions about where it fits best on the graphic organizer.  It also helps them put information in their own words.  It is difficult for them to plagiarize or let AI do the writing for them when they have to record their research by hand.  It also acts as a checklist.  When they go to write the answer to their question or create a project, they can use the checklist to make sure they have included the most important information in their final product.  

Step 5: Share Research

At this point in the process, students know enough to share what they have learned with others.  There are a variety of different ways that I have students tell one another about what they know, including jigsaws, mini-lessons, menu projects, and Q&A writing assignments.  Information about these is a blog post for another day.  Until then, check out my Social Studies Skills Handbook that includes all of these research resources, plus several other activities to help your students build important skills in your classroom.

Social Studies Skills

Social Studies Skills

Social Studies Skills

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