Teaching middle school students research skills can be like pulling teeth.  I worked with our Language Arts Teachers on note taking lessons recently. The lessons went well, thankfully.  The next step is the research project. I suggested different approach to the research project this time. Baby steps: before doing a big intense research project, try a "mini" research project. This will enable students to practice gathering and recording source information, taking notes and writing to inform. The finished product will be notes, one citation, and one paragraph of information. Once these are graded and returned and the teacher is ready for another research project, students can be required to submit more notes, more sources and more paragraphs. Taking a baby steps approach like this may lead to less frustration and more success for students and teachers and possibly a better view of research projects in general.


Check out this link to an idea page from the IRA/NCTE.
More ideas can be found here.