Electronic Publishing
Essay Exchange Unit Lesson Two
Rough Drafts
- Grade level: High School
- Subject Area: Social Studies and Language Arts
Brief Description
Lesson 2: Rough Drafts. Students submit rough drafts of position
papers. Rough drafts are evaluated by instructor and students refine them. Messages announcing
the project are placed on computer networks. The instructor e-mails copies of rough drafts for
evaluation to those who respond. Reader-volunteers can also visit the school's Website where
the essays are posted to read and review. Phase 2 duration: One to three weeks.
Objectives
Students will:
- Use a variety of
historical resources to gather information to support their thesis statements.
- Gain a wider
perspective of their work through electronic exchanges and evaluations of their papers.
- Further their writing skills by responding to feedback both from the instructor and
electronic reviews.
Materials and Resources Needed
In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about
the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the
LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a
computer (PC or Macintosh) with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor)
as well as software (operating system, TCP/IP software, networking or dial-up software, e-mail
and a World Wide Web client program, preferably Netscape, but perhaps Mosaic or Lynx). In the
section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson
or activity - over and above those described above - as well as our sense of the Internet access
required to do the activity.
- Special hardware requirements: None.
- Special software requirements: Word processing software.
- Internet
access: Medium-speed (28,000 BPS via modem), or High-speed (greater than 1 MBPS via network)
connection.
Activity Description
- Students write and submit their
rough drafts.
- Translate student essays into HTML format. You may choose to have each
group learn how to do the conversion, have student volunteers work with you to translate the
student essays into HTML format, or do it yourself. For more information on how to do HTML
translations, visit some of the sites we have listed below.
- Notify e-mail discussion lists and correspondents about the project to solicit readers for
the rough drafts. See the list of potential sites below.
Internet Resources
The following are a brief
list of some sites where you might submit a notification about social science related essay
exchange projects.
- Intercultural
E-mail Classroom Connection
[http://www.stolaf.edu/network/iecc/]
St. Olaf College
site lists a number of places where you can join e-mail discussion lists to connect with
classrooms around the United States and the world. h the United States and the world.
- Humanities Net e-mail discussion list on hypermedia
[H-MMEDIA@MSU.EDU]
Send
e-mail to this address to join a discussion list moderated by a history professor interested in
integrating computers and multimedia.
- Humanities Net e-mail discussion list for history teachers
[h-teach@MSU.EDU]
Send
e-mail to this address to particatipate in H-Teach. H-Teach is a list dedicated to teaching
history on the college-level.
- Humanities Net e-mail discussion list for Teaching Social Studies in Secondary Schools
[H-HIGH-S@MSU.EDU]
Send e-mail to this list to participate in discussions on secondary
social studies.
- Ednet
[ednet@noc1.oit.umass.edu]
This e-mail discussion list is a general education
list that led the way in educational e-mail discussions.
- Edweb Discussion List
wwwedu@elanor.oit.unc.edu
An e-mail discussion list run by
Andy Carvin, based at Edweb.
The following sites are places you can go to learn about making HTML documents.
- Setting Up A Web Site For Your
School: An On-line Presentation
[http://bigdog.fred.net/nhhs/html2/present.htm]
A
site developed by George Cassutto which explains terminology and outlines steps you can take to
establish your own web site.
- Beginner's Guide to
HTML
[http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html]
A good place
to start learning about html.
- Web66
[http://web66.coled.umn.edu/]
The
sections on technology and information offer help on issues such as setting up a server, getting
started with e-mail and other Internet needs.
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