Mark Twain - A History of a Great American Writer

This webquest is designed to introduce students to multiple styles of writing, teach them about research, and to look at a famous writer from a different perspective.  Students usually are assigned books, poems, articles, and periodicals to read and write about.  By empowering the students with the skills of research, peer review, and offering different ways to earn grades creates a learner-focused curriculum unit.

 

Tools available for the students to use include the public library, on line school library (if available), internet sites, and You Tube clips of famous interviewers as well as a recent Time Magazine article about how Mark Twain influenced modern politics.  Being specific about citing resources and discouraging the use of Wikipedia is a very important part of this Webquest.  Many people fine Wikipedia easily on a search engine and use the information found in there as factual and accurate when Wikipedia is not guaranteed accurate because the public can submit updates and the information submitted is not necessarily confirmed and annotated as factual and accurate.

 

The intended results of this Webquest and Curriculum unit is to help students develop a writing style of their own and to select reading materials and enjoy reading with a greater understanding and comprehension that comes from learning about the author and his or her style, the time period when the author lived, and the societal influences that may have inspired the writing.  In addition, this Webquest crosses disciplines between English Language Arts and Social Studies by combining reading, writing, comprehension, and research on a noted famous person.