Webquest Activity 

 

Carla Ramdat

SLM 521

November, 2004

 

Reading and Writing Biographies and Autobiographies

Audience ~ Upper Elementary Grade Levels

 

Introduction This activity is designed to introduce you to a few online websites with biographies to review and read them. You will follow the directions online to begin writing a biography of an author you are familiar with from reading his/her books in class.  Afterwards, you will go to a website on how to write an autobiography and follow this activity's rubric to present your autobiography.

     
 
                Your job

  • will be to read some of the biographies  online
  • follow the directions  from a website that  will guide you on how to write a  biography
  • read about writing autobiographies and follow the teacher-guided activities to write yours
  • follow this web quest’s  rubric to present  your  autobiography 

By the end of this lesson, you will have:

  • visited several  sites to review and read some  biographies and autobiographies 
  • learned how to write both by following the online  guidelines 
  • followed this activity's rubric to present your own autobiography


Procedure:
First, click here to read a few summaries of some children’s book authors

  • Do you recognize any authors' of books you've read in class?  
  • Find 3 authors that you recognize. For example, we read James and the Giant Peach and that author's name is on this page (Ronald Dahl)
  • Write down the name of 1 author that you think you might want to read more about on his/her life.

Next, you will click on this link below to read more information on the author you picked.

Children's Authors

 

Before choosing your author, first let's practice with clicking  here to read about

 

  1. What did you learn about Beverly Cleary?
  2. Where did she live as a child?
  3. What are 2 significant/special events that happened in her life?

Now, click back here again and choose one of these authors listed below or another author of your choice.

 

Eric Carle, Julia Alvarez, Ezra Jack Keats, Virginia Hamilton, E.B. White or Jane Yolen

  1. Write down the name of the author you chose.
  2. Where was he or she born?
  3. What is a significant event that happened in this author’s life?
  4. How did he or she become interested in writing books?

Now, we will read and focus on the author Patricia McKissack. 

Click on this link to read her biography. 

http://www.childrenslit.com/f_mckissack.html

 

What were the titles of some of her books? How did she begin writing books? Tell a partner more about Patricia McKissack.


Last you will follow the directions under "Resources" to complete the next activity.

Resources:

 Here is a site you will use to follow the guidelines to writing the biography.

Click onto this website below and follow steps 1-4 online for writing a biography.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/biograph/index.htm

 

Next, Click here to read some of the student biography entries.

 

Now you should be ready to begin your autobiography. An autobiography is a story about your own life. 

With your teacher guiding you through this…

Ø     First Click here to begin your pre-writing life map activity

Ø     Second, click on this link to get your life map checklist (Note: you will not be able to answer the questions about middle, high school and college. Instead, you can choose to share about the different grade levels you’ve completed.)

Ø     Next, as your teacher gives you some prompts, you will answer these in your journal

Ø     Last, with your teacher’s guidance, you will do the activities to begin your autobiography. Click here to begin. You will need these 2 items so click on these 2 links to get your rubric and your peer checklist.

 

Now that you have finished the writing, you will use the rubric below for your oral presentation.

 

Evaluation:
This rubric will guide you on what is expected for you to present your autobiography.

                              Remember...AIM for a 3

 

Autobiography Presentation Rubric

 

1-Bare Minimum

2-Developed

3-Accomplished

My Score

(Circle)

Form and Activity

Contains very limited information without any details

Contains information with some details but still needs more substance and organization

Contains information with great details or examples and is well organized .

   1

   2

   3

Content

You have 1-2 paragraphs  and they are not  well developed and are sketchy.

You have started with 4  paragraphs but they still need developing.

You have well developed paragraphs with detailed information.
You have included fun, interesting, comments about events in your life.

   1

   2

   3

 

Presentation

You read your story aloud but showed no eye contact  to your audience

You showed some eye contact but didn’t speak loudly or clearly so that we could hear you.

You used eye-contact during your presentation.
You also added props to your presentation to make it more interesting and spoke clearly and loud enough for us to hear.

    1

    2

    3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are 5 links to webquest sites. These sites can be used as guidelines and examples for creating a webquest.

 

They are:

 

http://www.iwebquest.com/egypt/mission1.htm-

This site has webquests activities for upper elementary and middle school students to learn information about Ancient Egypt.

 

http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/webquest/webquest.html

From Discovery School. Com ( Kathryn Schrock’s guide), this site is a guide for teachers in developing webquests. It gives you input as to what is a webquest and has links to other sites that have more information about them. The first link is to Bernie Dodge’s webpage who is a developer of webquests.

 

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/

This site is a staff developer site, which has workshop activities for teachers on developing online activites. There is a link to information about developing  webquests .

 

http://www.teachersfirst.com/webquest.htm

Here is another great site for teachers to use in creating a webquest. This site has a link to a tutorial session for teachers to guide them with developing a web quest plus other links to 101 teacher created webquests for you to use with your students.

 

http://www.davidson.k12.nc.us/webquests/weather/weather.htm

Here is a wonderful weather webquest to view and use as a guide when developing your webquest. You could also use it as a lesson/ activity for your students.