General Information Project Overview Curriculum Connections Resource Connections Evaluation

  General Information

  Project Overview

This project will involve a Novel Study. The novel to be studied will be posted on the Internet and a search made for a teacher and a class working on the same novel or who would be willing to work on the same novel. Students will be grouped with students from both their own class and the class community on the Internet. An attempt will be made to do a novel study of work by a Canadian author who would also be willing to communicate with the class via the Internet.

This approach to the Novel Study will be based on a workshop discussion strategy which will be utilized by both classes.

  Curriculum Connections

Main Curriculum Areas:

• Language Arts
• Social Studies
• Art
• Technology Education

The Language Arts program at the grade five level involves Novel Study as an Integral part of the curriculum. Extending the discussion to the internet would provide access to other interpretations and views from children in different communities. The notion of communicating with the author would be a tremendous enrichment of the actual study of the novel.

The emphasis of teaching at this elementary school over the past 4+ years has been on literacy and in this year we are concentrating in the area of comprehension. This project would fit in very well with the goals and objectives we have set for this academic year.

Intended Learning Outcomes (Curriculum Based):

Students will be able to:

• Read the novel under study.
• Research the geographical location in which the novel is set.
• Discuss the main themes, characters, and events in the novel.
• Write questions or messages for transmission by e-mail to other members in the group.
• Direct comments or questions by e-mail to the author of the work.
• Share their experiences with students in another part of the country.
• Learn more about the way of life of other students in Canada.

Intended Learning Outcomes (Technology Education):

Students will be able to:

• Create documents.
• Edit documents.
• Save documents to disk.
• Use a printer.
• Write e-mail messages.
• Send and retrieve messages.
• Use a scanner to send project material and artwork.
• Gain knowledge of Internet communications.

  Resource Connections

Novel studies are obviously done without access to the Internet, however, Internet access will greatly enhance this particular novel study. For children from one of the most underprivileged areas of Canada to be able to share experiences and reactions with children from another region would be truly a remarkable educational experience. The added opportunity of being able to communicate directly with the author of a book they have just read would be very enjoyable for our children.

Other Resources to be utilized:

• CD ROM technology such as Computer Encyclopedia.
• Scanner.
• Library resources.
• Collections: Language Arts Pilot Project.
• Novel.

  Evaluation

Students will be able to:

• Read and comprehend the novel of study.
• Develop communications skills via computer.
• Write and edit material to be shared with other students involved.
• Increase their awareness of technology advancements and benefits of communication links.
• Design character sketches.
• Dissect information for relevancy pertaining to topics of discussion.
• Write a book report.

Evaluation Procedure:

• Guided tours and strategy sheets to focus attention.
• Checklist provided to direct learning outcomes.
• Observations.
• Final book report to evaluate learning.
• Written report of learning experience.