Hand Outs are a teacher's best friend?

Currently, I am pretty satisfied with my unit calendar because I spent time on little details. However, I am considering re-doing all the lessons, which is almost all 6, that I already created  because I see potential for better lessons to be created.
I am trying to decide how I would scaffold and organize my week 3, which is revolved around the student inquiry research project. Reflecting back to what Sarah said in class about 2 weeks ago, I have been realizing I need to teach how to research, and what goes into a research paper, and what does the process look like before i expect students to just understand the assignment. Also, the same goes for them writing their papers later in the weeks too. In doing so I thought of a few workshop questions I can give students to guide their process with writing papers. In the handout I plan on including topics such as:
Techniques for introductions
Thesis (argument, agreeing vs disagreeing, exploring gray areas, beyond informing, including opposing ideas)
Transitions
Paragraph supports (does it support thesis)
Sources/Citing
Organization of paper

This will help me scaffold in the unit and can a handout they can constantly reference. This is one of the main reasons why I am going to change my unit from 6 weeks to 7 weeks because I feel "teaching" students what persuasive writing and research projects "look and sound" like will take time and it is an important step I do not want to rush through. Also, I want students to understand because they will be peer-reviewing and workshoping with each other.


UPDATE!!! It is now 12:33 and I officially changed my unit to 8 weeks. Ayiiyiii! I blame Smago for proving that it takes students at least 3 days to really give quality work!