The first article I looked at is called "Choose Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience." It is a unit from the web site ReadWriteThink, which is one I really like.
The unit is designed to last six to eight fifty minute sessions and it comes after the students have read adventure novels in literature sessions. What drew me to it at first (aside from the needed technology aspect) was that it is combining reading and writing and also providing students with a chance to publish their writing.
After they have read their own stories, students in groups of four write a Choose Your Own Adventure Story. They use web-authoring software, create their own Web site on which the different parts of their story are hyperlinked to each other. When planning the adventure, students can use an interactive webbing tool to create their stories.
In order to complete this assignment, students have to understand the elements of story-telling, and, more specifically, the elements of Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Students can see an example from a website that can be shown via a projector.
This project has a lot of elements: planning, writing, collaboration, revising, making a WebPage, etc. To do this the first time would be daunting, but the way the lesson is laid out in RWT is very clear. It gives the teacher a path to follow, as well as all the necessary materials (planning guides, graphic organizers, rubrics), a link to Microsoft FrontPage and to some useful websites.
I can see this activity appealing to many students, especially boys, who don't very often get excited about literature, but will often pick up a Choose Your Own Adventure story. You could certainly have students do the same activity and create a paper book, but I think the idea of designing a webpage would add to their motivation.
As with all such activities at my school, the problem might be in finding time in the computer lab. Much of the typing can be done on alphasmarts and transferred to the computers, but it takes time to teach the students to create a Webpage (especially as, if you are me, you would be doing it for the first time.) Our computer lab guru, however, is always happy to teach the students such skills.
All in all, I think this would be a really interesting experiment in combining reading,writing, and technology. I can see it being most appropriate with sixth graders, and I would not try this for the first time with a low skilled class. At my school, I would experiment with the TAG students.
I have a real thing for the Civil War and I find there are many excellent Civil War novels. So, I was quite excited to find "A WebQuest of the Civil War in Historical Fiction." The website is http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/leems/histfic.html.
This requires students to use the library catalog to find a Civil War book and then to read that book. This assignment requires them to work in pairs, so I can only assume that their library has two copies of each book - ours certainly doesn't. Then the students would fill out a Multi-media Book Report Worksheet. Unfortunately, this was not on the web, so I would have to produce one of my own. Students would then research the author of their novel, either with a teacher cited link or by searching the web. Students are introduced to a Boolean search.
Students are required to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on the book, if it feels historically accurate, and who the author is. They need to scan an illustration/graphic from the book with historic detail. Finally students present their PowerPoint to the class.
The instructions are on the web and, for the student, they seem clear and have some useful information. However, as the teacher presenting this unit, I would be left with questions.
I would pursue this unit further because I like the idea of students reading a variety of books and then sharing information about them. I know that in my reading classes we do a weekly "Talk Around" about books and the students do enjoy that. Also, this unit is one that would be, at some level, within the reach of all students. I prefer it to the standard book talk because the PowerPoint is going to provide a point of focus for the audience.
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3 comments:
The Choose Your Own Adventure sounds like a motivating project. If it seems daunting to try it the first time, are there smaller, similar projects students could do before doing a big project? Maybe they could write a one page story with two possible endings to present to the class and then move on to the bigger project.
These new projects always seem to require a lot of learning on the part of the teacher as well as the students. We not only have to learn the technology, but also the best way to present the unit to students.
Are you really going to try this unit? You sound like you may and if so, I bet it will be a success. Most kids really like the Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Kathyrn - the technology that we'll be using today sounds like a natural for the Choose Your Own Adventure project. In fact, that article brings up quite a few possibilities. The type of technology we'll be using will allow students to create individual pages for characters, places, monsters, etc. that students can link to as they write. They can upload their own images. They'll be able to write individually or in groups web page "chapters" of a story. Lots of ideas are coming to mind now!
If I don't talk about this in class, please remind me - I'd like to bring up the possibilities!
I remember reading choose-your-own-adventure books as a child. How funny, now it's "techie". I thought this was a really neat idea. Time consuming. But I think the end result would be worth it.
You know, I've looked at webquests, and considered doing them with my class, but so many of the ones I have looked have dead/outdated links. Oops. outta time. :)
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