Selecting Sources

Sources might be the best part of designing an inquiry. It's where we get to dive into the content and spend time with the materials we all love so much! Sources are the backbone of an inquiry. It is through the sources that students are able to access the content that they will need to complete all the task. In the sources is the stuff they will learn. Without good sources, inquiry is not possible. So, you will need to spend some quality time in finding good sources. Again, the inquiry on Uncle Tom's Cabin can serve as an example. The full inquiry includes 10 sources. You can see those in the blueprint for that inquiry below. Note how these sources are varied in type and complexity. This should be your goal in selecting sources for your inquiry. Vary the type - text, visual, data, even audio and video - and vary the complexity and even length of the sources.

Uncle Toms Cabin blueprint.pdf

Sources for an Inquiry

The sources in an inquiry deliver on the content suggested in the supporting questions. Students will work with the sources to complete formative performance tasks (that's our next section). Look at the sources in the Uncle Tom's Cabin inquiry. Think about how they deliver on the supporting questions. The first supporting question ask students, How did Harriet Beecher Stowe describe slavery in Uncle Tom's Cabin? To answer the question, students are provided with three sources - a summary of the book, text excerpts, and illustrations from the book. Those sources deliver on the content of the supporting question and provide students with an opportunity to engage and build their knowledge.

Adapting Sources for an Inquiry

It's one thing to identify a source for an inquiry and quite another thing for students to learn from that source effectively. As inquiry designers, we need to take two additional actions after finding the sources before students will be able to use those sources in an inquiry. First, we will need to scaffold their interaction with the sources. That can we in the form of questions to structure their interaction, graphic organizers to help them compile information, or a whole host of other strategies to help students as novices engage with complex sources. We'll spend more time thinking about scaffolding at the end of this module when we consider implementing the inquiry with your students.

The second consideration is something we need to think about right now, that is adapting the sources for use in the inquiry. As you find your sources, keep in mind that most of these sources were created for some reason other than the purposes of your inquiry. Often they were created in the past, and more often they were created for adults who have more background knowledge and skills in place for using the sources. In most cases, you will need to adapt the sources you find for use with your students. This may include taking an excerpt from the source, adapting the sources by simplifying or otherwise changing the text or presentation, and annotating the source by adding some explanations to help students understand the context of the source or something complicated within. Take a close look at the sources in the Uncle Tom's Cabin inquiry. You'll see that all of these sources were adapted in some way.

Design Challenge #6

Take some time to find sources for your inquiry. This may actually take a good bit of time. You might want to start by brainstorming a list of possible sources based on your prior knowledge. With those in mind, fire up your web browser and start searching. Now, be careful!! You know it can be a slippery slope into that rabbit hole of internet browsing. What you think may be a quick search of a source you have in mind can turn into a twisting journey to all sorts of related and sometimes unrelated material. We think it's important to keep two things in mind when search. We'll pose these as questions you should keep in mind as you search for sources.

Is the time I am spending online looking for sources helping we to learn more about my topic? If the answer is yes, then go for it. That's time very well spent. If not, and you're spinning your wheels, just retreat and rethink your search.
Are there sources out there that have already be packaged up that I can use in my inquiry? Is so, go for it! We cannot overemphasize how important it is to share our work and to take advantage of what others have shared. That's why all 369 inquiries on C3 Teachers are available and with open source permission for you to use. Do it, check those out on C3teachers.org HERE.
Do I have enough sources? The answer is yes, more often than not. Resist the temptation to over source your inquiry. Aim for those high quality, high value sources to deliver the content you need students to engage.

Return to your IDM Design doc and add your sources. You should keep a running list, add and subtracting sources from your list as you explore. As you make final decisions to use a source, make the adaptations to that source that will be needed for your students to use in in the inquiry. Continue to adjust your supporting questions and even make adjustments to your compelling question as needed.

When you have completed this design challenge, please proceed to the next step in the design process, Building Knowledge through the Formative Performance Tasks. This is the last step in the Filling the Inquiry phase of our design process.

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