SIRS Researcher

From the leading issues list, I picked banned books. There were 34 sources found. There were 18 newspaper, 3 magazine, 2 viewpoints, 1 reference, and 10 graphics/media. The student could pick all or only the type they would be using. The overview gave a summary as to what would be found in these sources. When you clicked on more it would give you terms to know on the left and pros and cons issues on the right along with events, key figures, organizations, and primary sources. At the bottom of this pages, it also gives a one sentence summary and the MLA citation. This page may be printed or emailed for further use. The research tools help the students not only with the overview but give them a timeline, global impact, statistics, and tools to help them organized there work. Each of these sections had more articles that pertained to what was presented in this section. It was all nicely organized if the students would take the time to dig through the material. I like the pro and con issues and essential questions. This takes a topic and narrows it down for the student to concentrate on one part of the topic. I chose "Free Speech Must Be Balanced Against the Rights of Others." It gives the students the option to read aloud, translates the written word into various languages, provides a summary, and does a MLA citation. It also gives them related subjects and articles if they need more on the subject. Again this could be emailed or printed out for later use. The students use Researcher a lot to pick topics and present speeches and term papers.