The authors investigate how innovative research assignments based on students' personal interests can help them want to develop their research skills. They find that multimodal communication and representation, including film, written scripts, comic strips, music, and photography, encourage students to carefully select information from the…

As online research has become an increasingly standard activity for middle school and high school students, Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) has simultaneously emerged as the bane of many teachers who include research-focused assignments in their courses. An online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit its entries, Wikipedia has educators…

Explains how TV can be used to help students understand the general principles of research. (EL)

Describes experiences in planning and conducting a workshop that combined the teaching of writing, research, and basic photography skills. (EL)

Details responses students got from an assignment in which they were required to ask questions of people in eight different occupations about the kind of writing they do in their jobs, the most important qualities of writing, and the biggest problems they see in the writing of others. (EL)