Change your students⠡ttitudes toward writing and researching
确d your attitude toward teaching!
Earn SB-CEU credits
Or just enjoy a 1- to 2-hour career-changing experience
Dear Fellow Educator,
If you teach high school or college composition or research writing classes, there is a good chance you have students who donⴠwant to be there. Somewhere early in their educational careers, they too often lose the drive to excel and the courage to create, both of which are innate parts of our makeup as humans. By the time they get to your class, they fear writing and researching. Often they hate it. If you are lucky they are merely ambivalent toward it.
What does that mean for their future as productive citizens?
What does that do to the idealism that brought you to the teaching profession?
The I-Search paper is the best methodology to reverse those negative attitudes and help your students rediscover the magic of writing and researching.
And help you revive your passion for teaching.
Now you can learn how to teach the I-Search paper to your students with the guidance of one of the worldⳠforemost experts on the I-Search methodology.
 Earn SB-CEU credits- check out the Workshop Overview.
Click here for more information and to request the free Teacher's Guide
There is no better guide on your journey than Ken Wachsberger, the Dean of I-Search teachers today. An internationally known writer, editor, educator, I-Search consultant, and author of Transforming Lives: A Socially Responsible Guide to the Magic of Writing and Researching, Ken has been teaching the I-Search paper to his students at Eastern Michigan University for almost twenty years. He has taught workshops and classes at the high school level as well. His methods are adapted and expanded from the original idea of I-Search pioneer Ken Macrorie.
And as if his workshop isnⴠvalue enough, he makes himself available to participants for consultation by phone or email after the workshop and will come into your classroom to work with your students.
He is committed to your success and to the success of your students.
His mission: to create a wildly literate society.
Isnⴠit time you joined him?
Click here to set up a workshop for your school or just to invite Ken to speak with your teachers. Wherever you live, Ken will travel to fulfill his mission.
In order to prepare our students to handle real-world demands of the twenty-first century, we need to help them develop as life-long learners. The I-Search paper is the best research approach to help students ask questions that matter to them across all disciplines and then probe for answers by interviewing, Internet searching, reading recommended articles and books, drawing from their personal experience, peer grouping, and a personal search process. It helps them to become methodical and organized, skills that can be generalized to other life realms.
It also makes them more comfortable with writing in general. We know that when students are engaged in personal writing they usually write more. While quantity alone doesnⴠequal quality, you canⴠhave quality without some quantity. When students read their personal writing aloud and consult with others in a manner that is supportive, as Ken shows so clearly in Transforming Lives in his chapter on peer grouping, their writing improves at the same time as they are overcoming alienation, from each other and from the writing and researching process, and writing more.
The I-Search paper is a recommended form of writing at the middle school level. By limiting it to that age group, we are not nearly taking advantage of its possibilities. High school students are more mature; they have issues that run deeper and they are better ready to address them穦 they have the right tools. The I-Search paper is one of the best tools.
The I-Search paper is accessible to a wide and diverse range of student interests, abilities, and levels of motivation. It is ideal across the curriculum, for any department that wants to teach critical research skills. Your students will flourish if given the opportunity to experience it. Using it, you will turn around negative attitudes of reluctant, at-risk students and make them want to write better. At the same time, you will inspire and free your many gifted students to reach far beyond what they believed their limits to be.
What KenⳠstudents have written to him:
Ken,
When I began this class I thought that I would simply learn how to write a decent paper牠was very wrong!
Your class has given me not only a newly found confidence in my ability as a writer, but also something much more precious确 understanding and maturity that has allowed me to take the steps necessary to develop a healthy relationship with my mom.
Through my I-Search project, I realized how important it is for us to be a part of each otherⳠlives.
Thank you for giving me the 㮵dge䠉 needed to embark on this search.
* * *
Thank you Ken for your experience with I-search papers. This not only fulfilled an assignment, it will help change lives. This is the best class so far out of any college class that I have ever taken. I never was good at English and you knew that as I told you it before. However, taking the time to write this book was a great way for me to get out my feelings on paper. You are an amazing teacher. Keep up your good conduct as being that way. I hope many other students fulfill some of their questions in life as doing an I-search paper will help find some of the most life changing answers by asking questions, changing lives and having your homework become your devotion to seek those answers. I have spent 3 months in the library, spent many weekends here and spent many hours after work working on this paper. Thank you so much for everything, Ken. =0)
* * *
This class changed my life!
* * *
No, the mechanics, grammar, and spelling are not always perfect, but can you feel the passion in these letters? When is the last time you heard a reluctant student say he spent three months in the library?
As you may have guessed, here is a pleasant additional benefit: The I-Search paper can help you to get back in touch with the idealism that inspired you to become a teacher.
KenⳠcommitment to you: ㉦ you adopt the I-Search paper and Transforming Lives into your curriculum, I will be available for consultation by phone, email, and in person to help you as a group or individually to succeed with your students. Together we will build a wildly literate society, one student at a time.伯p>
Donⴠwait another day to reawaken your students⠰assion for writing, to renew your own passion for teaching, and to earn your SB-CEU credits.
Click here for more information and a free copy of KenⳠteacherⳠmanual.
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