It includes bridging activities to using computerized resources. See Information Skills Guide for Maine Educators for extended descriptions of these areas. Presearch Teachers can discover that the librarian's expertise is valuable in starting the students on a research process. I explain or model the steps in their classroom or in the library. The first step is an overview of the topic and the resources available for that topic.
Some teachers are ready to allow topic choice by the students, others have definite topics in mind.
First Steps to Upgrade Presearch From Topic to Focus Make such a page, with your own fun graphics, and help teachers recognize that their assignments can provide the best incentive for students to apply the information they gather, instead of just copying it. Relating this to the current type of MEA questions and to Bloom's Taxonomy helps to encourage teacher choice of products hard to plagiarize. I also give teachers samples of quality thinking questions, often geared specifically to their curriculum area. Additionally helpful to the teachers may be a reminder that even evaluation level questions usually need knowledge level facts from the library. The final product may move from knowledge levels of information through comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and into evaluation using the gathered information.