Week 10, Session 1: Research Questions and Source Credibility

Session Focus

Develop focused, arguable research questions and evaluate print and digital sources with a repeatable credibility process. This session treats research as disciplined inquiry rather than a hunt for quotations that already agree with a first opinion.

Standards Emphasis

W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8, RI.11-12.7. Students conduct sustained research, refine questions, gather relevant information from authoritative sources, and assess each source's strengths and limitations.

Learning Targets

• Transform a broad topic into a focused, open, researchable question.
• Distinguish primary, secondary, and tertiary sources and choose each for a clear purpose.
• Evaluate credibility through lateral reading, author expertise, evidence quality, currency, relevance, and purpose.
• Record a provisional answer that remains open to revision as evidence develops.

Key Language

inquiry, research question, primary source, secondary source, lateral reading, authority, evidence quality, currency, relevance, bias, corroboration

Teacher Explanation

A strong research question is focused enough to investigate, open enough to require reasoning, and significant enough to matter. Questions that merely ask for a fact end too quickly; questions that contain their own verdict encourage confirmation bias. Use the FOS test: focused, open, significant.

Source evaluation begins outside the page as well as inside it. Lateral reading means leaving a source to investigate its author, publisher, funding, reputation, and treatment by independent sources. Then evaluate what the source actually offers: Does it cite evidence? Is its method visible? Is it current enough for the question? Does it represent expertise or direct experience? What purpose and audience shape it? Bias does not automatically disqualify a source, but hidden interests and unsupported claims reduce its usefulness.

Match the source to the job. A government dataset may establish scale; a peer-reviewed study may explain patterns; a firsthand interview may reveal experience; a news report may supply current context. No single source should carry an entire complex argument.

Professional Teaching Routine: I Do → We Do → You Do

• I Do: The teacher thinks aloud while narrowing a broad topic, opens new tabs conceptually to verify the publisher and author, and separates evidence about credibility from personal agreement with the claim.
• We Do: Teacher and students apply the FOS test and a credibility matrix to three source descriptions, then decide which source is useful for which part of an investigation.
• You Do: The student develops one research question, locates or proposes three complementary source types, and writes a credibility note for each before using any claim.

Original Mentor Text (created for this course)

Research scenario: school transportation and access. Source A is a city transit agency's current dataset showing route frequency and average delays, with downloadable methodology. Source B is an opinion post by an unnamed author claiming that buses are always empty; it links no records. Source C is a university transportation center's two-year study of attendance and commute time, naming researchers, methods, sample limits, and funders.

Worked Example 1: Narrowing a broad topic

Broad topic: public transportation. Weak question: Is public transportation good? It is vague and invites a yes/no answer. Stronger question: How does morning transit frequency affect on-time attendance for Grade 11 students in large U.S. public-school districts? The revision specifies a relationship, population, setting, and outcome while leaving the answer open.

Worked Example 2: Evaluating usefulness, not just trustworthiness

Source A is strong for current local frequency and delay data because its method is visible, though the agency may present its performance favorably. Source C is strong for interpreting a relationship between commute time and attendance, but its sample limitations must be reported. Source B is weak as evidence of ridership because neither author nor data can be verified; it might be studied only as an example of public rhetoric, not treated as fact.

Independent Practice

• Revise three broad topics into focused, open, significant questions.
• Create a source-purpose matrix with columns for source type, contribution, limitation, currency, and credibility evidence.
• Evaluate the three mentor sources and assign each a role: background, data, analysis, firsthand perspective, or reject.
• Write a two-sentence provisional answer to your best question and identify what evidence could change it.

Exit Ticket and Reflection

Submit one research question, the source type most needed to answer it, and one credibility check you will complete before taking notes.

References

• National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. https://corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/ELA_Standards1.pdf
• California Department of Education. (n.d.). California Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts/Literacy, Grades 11–12. https://www2.cde.ca.gov/cacs/ela
• Modern Language Association. (2021). MLA Handbook (9th ed.). https://style.mla.org/