Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description

• Grade level: High School

• Subject Area: Social Studies and Language Arts

Brief Description

    Lesson 4: Response to Essays. Students receive and read electronic reviews of their essays. Responses from reviewers will be used as basis for class discussions and further research. Duration: 2 weeks.
Objectives

Students will:

• Have their ideas challenged by the publication of their projects on the Web.
• Engage in discussions differing historical perspectives.
• Gain experience making presentations.

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.

1. Special hardware requirements: None.
2. Special software requirements: Word processing software and an html editor.
3. 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 final 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 such translations, you may want to visit some of the sites listed below.

• Notify e-mail discussion lists and correspondents about the project. See the list of potential sites below.

• Students read the responses to their essays. You may choose to have them read them on-line or to down-load the messages and print them off for individuals or the whole class to read. You may also use overheads of the responses, or an LCD panel or monitor, to share the reviews with the entire class. Ask the cooperative groups to discuss the feedback that they received on their essays and make a presentation of what they learned from the feedback. The responses to the essays serve as the basis for class discussion and further research.

    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.

• 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.

Internet Resources

    The following sites are places you can go to learn about making HTML documents.

• Setting Up A Web Site ForYour 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.

Back to Essay Exchange Unit Lesson Plans