Word Processing - Editing a Report - Teacher Tips

“The Presidency of William Henry Harrison,” a sample report with MLA citations, was written by a high school librarian. It has been modified to create formatting and editing challenges.
Note - Discourage plagiarism: let your school’s social studies teachers know that the W. H. Harrison report is available to students.

PROCEDURES :

• Post or show electronic copies of the finished report for students to see.   There are versions in two fonts: Times New Roman and Arial.   See your T: drive files.  (Don't show them the Key Versions.)
• Encourage students to work with care and thoughtfulness.
• Encourage frequent saving when they successfully complete steps, and click the Undo icon if they bumble. (For a worst-case bumble: close without saving.  When you reopen the document you see the last saved version—most helpful if you save often!)
• For students with lower skill levels, supply printed copies of the Instruction Tables. If they don’t know the tools mentioned in the second column of the instructions, they should read all columns for the most help.

Format and Edit:

• Students must save the sample report to their H: drive to work on it:

  • Check students' screens: in the blue Title bar, look for the Word icon and title, RsrchPprSamp.doc. If you see the Internet icon and a long file name, the student has not saved properly.
• Spelling and grammar-encourage students to:

  First scan the report, looking for the red and green ripple underlines in the text.

  Right click in word or phrase for spelling or grammar popup menu. (Using Tools> Spelling and Grammar may confuse some students)

• Do instruction/practice in: Thesaurus, Find & Replace, and drag and drop text, if students are not familiar with these tools.
  • To demonstrate Thesaurus, practice with: "popularity" in parag. 2, "uncouth," parag. 3, "grave," parag. 4, choosing the most appropriate synonym suggested by Word.
  • In the sample finished report, "curious" is replaced by "remarkable," but there are other choices. Urge students to read their sentence again for sense. If they choose a word beginning with a vowel, they must also change a to an.

Formatting Report Sources

• All source information is provided in the sample report.

• Since this is a formatting task, the red text adds information that a writer would normally keep in notes when reading the sources.
• The student must decide how much information to put in the parenthetical notes.

Note: Although word processing programs provide italics, the MLA Handbook encourages the use of underlining to avoid text readability issues.

Assessment: Use the Grading Checklist

• Print copies of the checklist to record and grade each student's work.

• Ask students to show you a print preview of their report so you can quickly check off the formatting aspects. Color highlighted copies of the final report are in your T: Drive--they have the letters KEY in their document name.  Print on a colored printer and use when completing checklists.

• At your discretion, students must have correct formatting to gain checks, or they may be allowed to complete work and submit for assessment again. 

• In addition, ask your students to demonstrate specific skills at their computers while you watch. Use the skills listed in the third column of the Grading Checklist.

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