Technology is just "one piece of the pie" when it comes to literacy instruction, and educational Internet resources are even a smaller piece of that pie. However, the Internet provides a new and unique platform for students being asked to interact with literature and share their responses with others. Dr. Joyce Melton Pagés, President of KidBibs explains that although "books will always be the essential tool for supporting the language and literacy development of young readers and writers", the Internet provides a wealth of resources for encouraging and celebrating literacy. During the next two months, I'll provide you with a sampling of some of the ways in which the Internet motivates students to interact with and respond to the literature they read.
This month, you'll find many links to teacher-created cyberguides and webquests that are inspiring students to move beyond the rote recall of story events as they are asked to compare, contrast, evaluate and respond to text and information in new ways. In June, you'll find examples of the many forms that books can take when shared with readers in an electronic format over the World Wide Web.
Research has shown that "Classrooms where responses to literature thrive seem to be characterized by teachers' valuing of responses as the crux of literacy growth. Valuing of responses in the classroom is evident when teachers (a) provide opportunities for response, (b) provide response models, and (c) receive children's responses (in all their diversity)." The Internet now includes many resources that assist teachers in these endeavors. Let's take a look at some of the possibilities:
Webquests
Bernie Dodge and Tom March, the original creators, define webquests as "higher-order activities that focus on presenting students working collaboratively with a real life task. Students working in groups assume roles that will enable them to solve real life problems in the course of a simulation. They use the Internet as one of many resources, and then share what they have learned with others." Webquests have begun to emerge as a thought provoking alternative to worksheet response activities in the classroom.
Some webquests have been designed to enhance content area reading using new sources of text that are now easily available with access to the Internet. Reading and Technology in the Social Studies provides lesson ideas for teaching students how to read primary source documents, hypertext documents and student materials that have been published on the web. The webquest Swimming With Short Stories was designed to help prepare middle school students for writing their own short stories. Its purpose is to help students become better acquainted with the short story by looking at sites that summarize classic short stories and sites that give background information about some famous authors. This page also includes a site that gives examples of short stories written by middle school and high school aged students.
