BJU Press Blog

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3 Tips for Being Research Paper Ready

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The research paper is the most difficult part of any English course—almost universally dreaded because of its difficulty. Most students would rather avoid it. As much as students dislike doing the research paper, teaching and grading it is just as intimidating. While I was working on my MA in English, I was also a graduate assistant in the English department, and teaching and grading research papers became my life for the better part of two years. Even with my background in English, I had some of the same fears you probably have as you teach your child about research papers. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to answer my students’ questions or that I’d teach them wrong. Here are three helpful things I learned from teaching college freshmen about writing research papers.

Research-Papers

1. Assign More Than One Paper

I always handed out questionnaires on the first day of class to ask my students what kind of writing they had already done. I liked the interesting responses to that question. Some regularly wrote on a blog while others had written short stories. Almost invariably, the students who had written research papers regularly in high school (once a year or more) did better on their first college-level research paper than those who hadn’t.

You can encourage your child to develop his thinking by assigning different kinds of research papers, and not just for English class. You can assign comparison-contrast papers in history, persuasive papers in economics, argumentative papers in biology, analytical papers in literature, or simple informative papers in science.

2. Let Them Write About What They Like

Because of English department requirements, every student in my class had to write about energy technology and policy, a topic even I found boring. It was hard to watch students who were beginners at writing struggle with both a lack of understanding about writing as well as a strong dislike for the subject. If it’s your child’s first research paper, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have some fun with it.

Letting your children pick their own topics or assigning them a topic they’re interested in can be a great way to encourage them to write, especially if they’re reluctant or young writers. Though writers also need to know how to write well about topics they aren’t interested in, it’s better and more encouraging for them if their first experience with a high school assignment is on a topic they enjoy.

3. Require Them to Make a Good Outline

An outline can make or break a research paper. If the writer has a solid outline, he’ll have a solid paper. But if his outline is faulty, the paper won’t work. With fifty or more students, I couldn’t make sure every student had a good outline before I let them start writing the paper, but in a homeschool situation you can.

An outline is like a snapshot of the entire paper. It should quickly show the reader the overall structure of the paper—the argument, the reasons for that argument, and the support for those reasons. For most papers, the main points should all explain why the thesis is true. The subpoints all explain how the corresponding main point is true. If the outline includes sub-subpoints, these should show research that supports the how’s of the subpoints. If the main points and subpoints follow these guidelines, then the thought behind the paper should be accurate, and your child can focus on style and grammar as he presents the content. If the outline doesn’t follow these guidelines, then he isn’t ready to write yet. So make sure your child has the outlining done properly before writing the rest of the paper.

BJU Press’s Writing & Grammar courses put a strong emphasis on research paper writing and suggest many options for research papers in different subject areas.

Do you have any other research paper writing topics you’d like me to cover or tips you’d like to share? Feel free to comment with your questions or suggestions!

Fresh Notebooks and a Fresh Start

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Freshly sharpened pencils and new blank notebooks—that was what I always loved best about getting ready for the first day of school. Oh, sure, there were the textbooks too, but what could compare to the possibilities of little volumes full of blank pages? Knowing my notebooks would soon hold the requisite math problems and spelling words did little to dampen my enthusiasm. After all, they might also harbor fantastic stories, random thoughts, and an occasional doodle in the margin. The possibilities for those new notebooks were endless. What a relief to throw away the worn-out, used-up notebooks of last year and begin again!

Years have passed, and while my enthusiasm for the potential in blank notebooks reignites when I see school supplies go on sale, a feeling of responsibility accompanies it. Now I’m not writing just in notebooks but on human lives. How can I possibly impart even half of what my children need to know to face life in this increasingly difficult world? Spelling and grammar, history, math, science, biblical studies, humanities—the list goes on, and that’s just their school subjects! Life skills, walking with God, common sense, responsibility, and a good work ethic rarely receive written grades but are far more significant to their future success as adults.

Who can face the awesomeness of such a task? And yet, even with such a weighty responsibility, getting “back to school” is exciting! Each child seems like a “notebook” full of fresh, blank paper on which to write the learning of a new school year. And each day is a new page, right?

Fresh Notebooks

But these “notebooks” are much less pristine than we might wish. Despite the hope that comes with a new beginning, our fallen human nature reasserts itself quickly, and it isn’t long before torn, dirty pages appear. Even in the more nurturing environments of our homeschools, we have to correct bad attitudes, selfishness, laziness, and sometimes even cheating.

So what are we as parents to do when it becomes apparent that, in spite of all of our best efforts, this new homeschool year isn’t going to go as smoothly as we had hoped? When instead of writing on fresh pages in new notebooks, we’re competing for this year’s writing space with last year’s scribbled misunderstandings, gummed-up pages, and faulty thought equations?

Despite temptations to think otherwise, we must remind ourselves that God is the one at work in these young lives. His is the hand that writes—we are simply His pens. We may have academic and learning goals for our children (and we should), but His purpose for their lives reaches into eternity. While we grow discouraged over torn pages and rewrites, He is re-creating pages to hold the Story He writes on every willing heart.

So if, after a great start to your homeschool year, things begin getting rough and you wonder again whether you’re making any progress in the “notebooks” you’ve been given, look up! The Father’s handwriting can be hard to read sometimes, but He knows exactly which words to include in each little volume and how best to guide His pens. And in the hand of the Master Teacher, that makes all the difference.

Making Math Enjoyable with Themes

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Memorizing math facts may come easy to many people, but some (myself included) have a harder time visualizing a numerical problem and solving it mentally. It’s not that we can’t do it but rather that numbers have little value when they’re separated from a real-life situation.

It’s the application of math that helps us understand the importance of knowing how to solve an equation. But sometimes learning best takes place when there’s an example of how someone else has used math in daily life whether that’s through household chores or an occupation. This type of example does two things. It shows how math can be used, and it also gives motivation to use it.

BJU Press elementary math introduces themes in every grade to help kids understand math and see how it applies to our everyday lives. Each grade has a unique theme that makes math more enjoyable but also relatable. Lower-elementary kids are introduced to special characters. Rhymes, songs, and stories about these characters are included in different lessons throughout the entire course.

MathK5

In Math K5, Cheddar the mouse lives on Kindergarten Lane in Mathville. He uses math to help Farmer Brown keep an eye on what’s happening on the farm. In one lesson, your child works with Mrs. Brown to count the number of cabbages in the garden row. Another day on the farm, shapes are found on Farmer Brown’s outfit (like buttons that are circles).

Math6

Once students reach the upper-elementary grades, themes provide your child motivation for using math. For example, Math 6 includes a search-and-rescue theme with read-aloud stories about search-and-rescue events for each chapter. Chapter 7 opens with the true account of Balto and other dogs that delivered a special serum to people who were sick in Nome, Alaska. The concepts learned in this chapter are multiplying fractions and decimals—an important skill for measuring out medicine just like Dr. Curtis Welch did when he treated the people of Nome.

See more examples of these themes in BJU Press math curriculum.

Make Your Kindergarten Curriculum Work for You

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KindergartenStructure

Quite a few homeschoolers attend my church. Several months ago, I had nursery duty with three other homeschool moms. The topic of conversation? Homeschool curriculum. Even in that small group, everyone had an opinion about what curriculum worked best for certain types of learners.

There are a lot of curriculum choices out there, and each of them has different strengths. My school-age daughters have both used the BJU Press curriculum. My oldest daughter has used it for K4, K5, and first grade; and my middle daughter has used it for K4. They have very different learning styles, but one of the strengths of BJU Press curriculum is its flexibility.

The curriculum isn’t designed for one type of learner—it’s designed for all types of learners. In a lot of ways, the BJU Press curriculum is like a roadmap—the objective is the same for everyone, but you get to choose where you stop along the way and how long you linger at each place. Below are two examples of how you can customize the BJU Press kindergarten curriculum to fit your child’s needs. I’ve chosen to focus here on the kindergarten curriculum since I’ve had one child use it already and another child who will use it this fall.

Customizing Your Lessons

One way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by customizing individual lessons to fit the learning style of your child. You don’t have to do everything the Teacher’s Edition suggests. For example, the K5 curriculum includes a lot of songs that are designed to help kindergarteners remember challenging concepts (such as the difference between the hour hand and the minute hand on a clock).

My oldest daughter doesn’t remember songs well—the Lord hasn’t gifted her with that ability. I would have probably skipped over that part of the lesson. However, since my middle daughter loves music and singing really helps her learn, we will probably sing every song in the book multiple times.

Making Use of Optional Activities

Another way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by using some of the optional activities in the Teacher’s Resource CD to provide extra practice for your child if he or she is struggling with a concept. For example, BJU Press Math K5  introduces kindergarteners to the concept of fractions by teaching parts of a whole.

If my middle daughter struggles to understand that concept, I could pull out the Teacher’s Resource CD that’s attached to the inside back cover of the Teacher’s Edition. This CD contains an entire section of extended activities that are organized by chapter. Since I know that my daughter is a very kinesthetic learner, we would probably play the shape matching game that is explained in chapter 13.

You as the parent/teacher know your child best; you know your child’s strengths and weaknesses. So take advantage of the flexibility of the BJU Press curriculum and customize it to meet your child’s learning needs.

Our Homeschool Field Trip Journal

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Field Trip Journal

This summer our family had the opportunity to visit Jamestown Settlement. It isn’t on the original site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, but it is nearby on the James River. It’s a terrific place to teach children about history. All over the living history museum, docents encourage the children to touch everything. There are replica ships, a life-sized fort, even a Powhatan village. The site also has hands-on activities, so my daughters got to help remove fur from a deerskin with oyster shells and try on armor.

My wife and I had visited Jamestown Settlement before, so we knew the children would have fun and get an introduction to colonial life. But we wanted our four-year-old and six-year-old to view this as a learning opportunity and not an amusement park with a historical theme. But on the other hand, we didn’t want to remove the joy of learning that comes from an opportunity like this. So we developed a field trip journal. Using learning strategies that we gleaned from the BJU Press reading curriculum, we planned “pre-reading” and “post-reading” questions to improve our children’s learning comprehension.

Before the Field Trip

Just as we ask pre-reading questions to activate prior learning before reading a story, we asked our children to answer questions about what they knew before we arrived at Jamestown Settlement. Our six-year-old has finished first grade, so she wrote short sentences to answer questions. But both she and our four-year-old used crayons to draw pictures to express their thoughts. As they drew pictures of Native American tepees and horses, they were thinking through what they already knew about early American life. Their pictures were wrong since they drew cone-shaped tents. But that was good. They were setting themselves up to have their misconceptions corrected on the field trip.

We also asked them what they were looking forward to seeing the most at Jamestown. This created a sense of excitement and helped them look forward to the new things they would be learning.

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After the Field Trip

Leaving the settlement, we sat at a picnic table to eat sandwiches, chips, and grapes. After lunch we pulled out their journals and asked them some more questions. We guided them to think through what they had learned and to draw pictures of the Powhatan huts, so they could see the difference between what they thought they knew before the field trip and what they knew afterwards. We also asked them to draw what they most  enjoyed seeing. These questions cemented the learning for our children and helped turn a fun trip into long-term memory. The journals also became souvenirs that were far more valuable than the ceramic mugs at the gift shop.

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