This is how creative some of my students are in gathering information-
Once we reached invention module 2-Using Questions, I assigned 30 items for the Affirmative and Negative sides on the ANI chart. So I just found out that two high school girls decided to post a request for ideas on their issue on their MySpace site.
It depends. The fifth topic is authority or testimony and I don't see any reason to restrict the authorities they can have access to. The critical thing is to guide them to use authority correctly - i.e. to learn to assess whether it really is authoritative.
If friends send them sources for them to gather information, this would seem every bit as valuable as if they did so in the school hallway.
If they quote whatever a peer says without engaging the critical faculties, that would be lazy.
If they cannot provide any more sourcing for the idea than Myspace, that would be wholly inadequate.
I am always ready to trust students until they show themselves to be untrustworthy. Once trust is lost in a relationship, that relationship is in trouble. So don't be too quick to assume the worst of them. Instead, use what they do to teach them how to do it better.
They might well be generating the very discussion we yearn for young people to participate in!
To the point: What question did they use on Myspace to gather information?
I see your point Andrew. It is all about the question. If the student is using friends, etc. to get other opinions or to generate other sources for information, that is creative. I thought Leah meant that her students were posting their issue/questions for others to generate the ideas they needed.
You're right, Andrew. I was too quick to assume that they were gathering definition and comparison ideas from other people.
Asking questions of other people and comparing their answers IS a great way to assess authorities.
I guess I wouldn't hurry to put teenagers on the list of "authorities" but as we get older, we go more and more to our peers, who are gaining more and more wisdom. By then we'd better have learned the lesson of assessment. So starting now (for them) seems a good idea.
I hope they do generate discussions with their peers when they're really thinking and asking good questions!
