Teacher
Dear colleague,
This webquest was created for my own HAVO-4 class. The choices I have made with regards to the contents, subject and approaches used, are determined by the characters and educational backgrounds of the students in this class and by my own personal preferences.
Personally, I like romantic poetry, music and paintings very much. Among the poets, Wordsworth is still my favourite. So, the poems I have chosen for this webquest are in a way choices from the heart.
The students in this partiular class are typical modern Dutch boys and girls: down to earth, practical, on the whole no big readers, and in this case beta talented. So the question I have to deal with is the following: how can I get a group of 27 students who are mostly interested in the latest technology, -mobile phones and games-, interested in a subject like the Romantics?
In addition I have to mention the fact that they haven't dealt with any poetry in their secondary school career so far. A little survey I carried out also shows that they do not read poetry and don't think it is interesting. Out of the 27 students only two wrote down that they ever read poetry. One reads children's rhymes and the other only works written by himself.
This means that these lessons would be their introduction into English poetry and that I would have to take this into account when I choose my poems and subjects. Wordsworth, I felt, was ideal for this type of introduction. His poems are unambiguous enough for these students to make sense of. Furthermore, I would like to add that I have chosen the reader response method and the historical approach because these students love to voice their own opinions and like to be engaged in discussions. The historical approach enables me to give them factlike material that will make the subject matter tangible and real to them. It may help me 'ground' the poems in real life.
Summarizing, I would try to achieve the following aims:
I will now discuss the individual parts of my webquest and explain my choices by offering short, note like explanations. All in order to save you, reader, some time.
I hope you will find these explanations sufficienct and that you will appreciate my choices. Perhaps, you may even want to use some of the material for your own lessons.
Kind regards,
Ilona Riede
This webquest was created for my own HAVO-4 class. The choices I have made with regards to the contents, subject and approaches used, are determined by the characters and educational backgrounds of the students in this class and by my own personal preferences.
Personally, I like romantic poetry, music and paintings very much. Among the poets, Wordsworth is still my favourite. So, the poems I have chosen for this webquest are in a way choices from the heart.
The students in this partiular class are typical modern Dutch boys and girls: down to earth, practical, on the whole no big readers, and in this case beta talented. So the question I have to deal with is the following: how can I get a group of 27 students who are mostly interested in the latest technology, -mobile phones and games-, interested in a subject like the Romantics?
In addition I have to mention the fact that they haven't dealt with any poetry in their secondary school career so far. A little survey I carried out also shows that they do not read poetry and don't think it is interesting. Out of the 27 students only two wrote down that they ever read poetry. One reads children's rhymes and the other only works written by himself.
This means that these lessons would be their introduction into English poetry and that I would have to take this into account when I choose my poems and subjects. Wordsworth, I felt, was ideal for this type of introduction. His poems are unambiguous enough for these students to make sense of. Furthermore, I would like to add that I have chosen the reader response method and the historical approach because these students love to voice their own opinions and like to be engaged in discussions. The historical approach enables me to give them factlike material that will make the subject matter tangible and real to them. It may help me 'ground' the poems in real life.
Summarizing, I would try to achieve the following aims:
- get my pupils interested in poetry
- introduce poetry to these students (provide a 'gentle' introduction)
- show my pupils that poetry is indeed relevant to our lives (I like to use this quote by Jeannette Winterson to state my case: "It is the emotional state of a situation that poetry can enter".
- show my pupils that poetry, even Romantic poetry, is not always soppy and/or about love
I will now discuss the individual parts of my webquest and explain my choices by offering short, note like explanations. All in order to save you, reader, some time.
I hope you will find these explanations sufficienct and that you will appreciate my choices. Perhaps, you may even want to use some of the material for your own lessons.
Kind regards,
Ilona Riede
assessment_form.pdf | |
File Size: | 275 kb |
File Type: |
Introduction
Introducing the theme and the big questions to get the students hooked. According to the site www.webquest.org a webquest should involve the studentsin the quest by presenting them with one main question.
Advance organizer
With regard to the tasks
Criteria:
variation in types of tasks to keep students interested
What I did not do
Despite the fact that I love music, paintings etc. myself I didn't include any of these, because the time (2 lessons) was too limited. It would have taken too much time to include these and do them justice. I only used some romantic paintings by Turner and Constable as illustrations.
Two lessons?
The amount of the material I present here will probably exceed the two hour limit we were given. Still, I decided to include all the things I did because I like to offer colleagues, pupils and myself a choice. So, I would have to indicate which poems and or tasks my pupils would have to do and which ones they could do in addition if they want to. Since I am an optimist I like to take into account the possibility that some students will get interested and would like to read more. The section titled "Encore"is the most obvious choice for this. Of course, it also depends on the type of group which choices and what amount of work would be the most sensible.
Finals, rubric and assessment form
Introducing the theme and the big questions to get the students hooked. According to the site www.webquest.org a webquest should involve the studentsin the quest by presenting them with one main question.
Advance organizer
- offering my students an overview and getting organized
- explaining what they are going to do and what skills are involved in each task
With regard to the tasks
Criteria:
variation in types of tasks to keep students interested
- asking students questions and giving them assignments that will get them involved in the theme and the poems, help them process the information and analyze what they have read, summarize, organize etc. In other words: ask questions that will evoke "higher level thinking".
- also make use of visualization tasks and audio fragments. This should appeal to different learning styles.
What I did not do
Despite the fact that I love music, paintings etc. myself I didn't include any of these, because the time (2 lessons) was too limited. It would have taken too much time to include these and do them justice. I only used some romantic paintings by Turner and Constable as illustrations.
Two lessons?
The amount of the material I present here will probably exceed the two hour limit we were given. Still, I decided to include all the things I did because I like to offer colleagues, pupils and myself a choice. So, I would have to indicate which poems and or tasks my pupils would have to do and which ones they could do in addition if they want to. Since I am an optimist I like to take into account the possibility that some students will get interested and would like to read more. The section titled "Encore"is the most obvious choice for this. Of course, it also depends on the type of group which choices and what amount of work would be the most sensible.
Finals, rubric and assessment form
- This final task refers back to the original main question. If I hadn't done this, asking the question in the first place would have made no sense. It also makes more sense from a structureal point of view.
- Checklist for the students. Listing all tasks one more time to make it easier for the students to check if they have completed their quest.
- Providing a rubric, offering the students insight into the criteria used for evaluation. Evaluation should never be a mystery or a surprise. The criteria have to be clear. One could say, the rules of the game have to be clear before you start playing.