Improve Student Writing with Guided Research Projects

I've never really been a fan of teaching writing, but I always really dreaded when it was time to teach informative writing.  Even as a student, research projects were the worst!  As a teacher, I especially hated when it was time for research projects to begin.  

For me, the topic was always too big and I didn't know where to start.  I had a hard time staying on topic.  I never really knew when it was time to be done researching and time to begin writing.  I found that a lot of my students were having the same issues and knew there needed to be a better way.