What skills to teach?

Here's another question I'm considering as the school year approaches: What skills should I teacher? And, just as important, how will I make time to teach them?

It so happens I'm collaborating with some colleagues about developing a well-articulated skills curriculum that stretches across grades 6-12. We've developed a preliminary list of skills, which makes it easier to think about what skills to teach. So, with that as background, here is a preliminary take:

Writing:

Skills to teach: writing a good thesis; organizing evidence and writing good topic sentences; effective analysis and use of evidence; selected mechanical issues (depending on what comes up)

How to teach it: I've been working on this for a few years, and I've developed a repertoire. It's just a matter of finding the time to actually teach it, along with the content students need to know and understand.

Questions still be answered: What sort of writing? Should I just to the traditional essay, or try a variety of writing assessments? On the one hand, few students will write five-paragraph essays when they leave school. On the other hand, a variety of assessments means students don't get enough practice with any one form, and the key skills in writing a good formal essay (I'll call it that, since I don't insist on five-paragraphs)--stating your argument clearly, organizing your ideas effectively, having clear signposts such as topic sentences, and using evidence effectively--are useful for any kind of writing.

Reading:

Skills to teach: Finding the main idea; summarizing; annotating; maybe note-taking

How to teach it: I've done this in the past a bit, and have read some things in Marzano, but I still need more specific techniques.

Questions still to be answered: What techniques or strategies work best for teaching reading of secondary source material, such as textbooks and articles?

Presentation skills:

Skills to teach: Making a good Powerpoint, including effective use of images and text; public speaking

How to teach it: I have the least experience with this, but want to do more this year. That means more assessments that involve an oral/presentation component, and a better articulated series of skills to teach.

Questions still to be answered: What's the best progression for teaching presentation skills?

Research skills:

Skills to teach: Generating a research question; finding sources; taking notes; formatting citations and bibliography (and sub-skills for each of these, too).

How to teach it: All of my students will need sustained attention with this, but, as with reading, I'm not clear on teach techniques and strategies.

Questions still to be answered: What techniques and strategies work best for teaching research skills?

Primary source analysis:

This is another area I'm interested in, but I've covered it in a separate post, so I won't cover that ground again here.

And now to tie it all together:

Here's a list of the skills I want to teach:

• Writing a good thesis
• Organizing evidence
• Writing good topic sentences
• Finding the main idea in a text (summarizing seems to be a variation on this)
• Annotating a text
• Taking notes on a text
• Making a good Powerpoint
• Public speaking
• Generating a research question
• Finding sources
• Taking notes
• Using and formatting citations
• Formatting a bibliography

And here's how I would structure them over the first part of the year:

1. First unit would focus on reading and writing: Students will annotate their text and practice finding the main idea. We would also work on writing thesis and topic sentences. I might start with primary source analysis skills here.
2. Second unit builds on the first unit: While getting continued practice on previous skills, students begin to work on note-taking, and on use of evidence in essays. I would also begin work on presentation skills, in this case focusing on the production of the actual presentation (Powerpoint/Keynote/Prezi). That might also be a place to begin discussion of how to find sources.
3. Third unit continues with the above, but adds research skills in depth, as this is the unit that includes our first big research paper.

By this point students should have been introduced to basic reading, writing, and research skills. The remainder of the year would be given over to practicing those skills, while continuing to build presentation skills and primary source analysis skills.

So that's a framework. But key questions still need to be addressed:

• What sort of writing should I have students do?
• What techniques and strategies work best for teaching reading, research, and presenting?

Feel free to share your answers to the above questions.