Connecting with the World: Creating Web-Based Treasure Hunts

Janice L. Rozich

One of my major goals in my classroom is to keep students actively engaged in learning activities that not only fulfill both our district and state standards, but also cross the content areas. These activities must be challenging, interesting, and relevant. I use myself as a guidepost when I create an activity, and I know that if it's fun for me, it should be fun for my students, too.

Not long ago, I began to realize that too many of my students were not receiving the full benefit that could be gained from reading the multicultural and historical literature selections in my seventh- and eighth-grade language arts classes. They had little or no background knowledge about the texts' topics, and therefore they had difficulty truly appreciating the stories. I set out to discover a way to bring the world to them. Computers and the Internet had proven themselves to be great motivational tools, and I knew that whatever I did would somehow involve and make use of the lure of the World Wide Web.

I had attended a workshop given by Bernie Dodge, the originator of the WebQuest, during an computer educators conference in my state, so I decided to do some research to see if WebQuests were something that would work in my classroom. It was then that I discovered Filamentality, a fill-in-the-blank interactive site that guides teachers through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering Internet resources, and turning these into an appropriate classroom activity. My students were going to begin reading “Pacific Crossing” by Gary Soto and they would need some background knowledge on Japan to understand this short story about Lincoln, a 14-year-old Mexican-American boy who goes on a summer exchange program to that country. I therefore decided to use Filamentality and my knowledge of WebQuests to create a treasure hunt called “Discovering Japan.”

A Web treasure hunt enables students to discover the information needed to understand a given topic. The instructor begins searching elements of the topic and gathers links that contain text, graphics, sounds, or videos that can provide the necessary background for students. The teacher writes questions to connect students to the content, and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs, or Web site addresses) are provided where students can find the answers -- one question for each link. As the Filamentality site explains, “By choosing questions that define the scope or parameters of the topic, when the students discover the answer they are tapping into a deeper vein of thought, one that now stakes out the dimensions or scheme of the domain being studied.” Students go only to the sites previously selected by the teacher -- no endless searching and no worrying that students will end up in places where they shouldn't be. At the end of the hunt, the students are asked a “Big Question,” which is written to synthesize learning into a broader understanding of the topic.

I was able to find several sites that highlighted the differences between American and Japanese culture and others that showed students that we are not that different when it comes to important things like family, school, and education. I also found two sites that revealed an indigenous part of Japanese culture that I knew my students would particularly enjoy: an interactive pachinko game and sumo wrestling. That was where the fun came in!

The students were delighted when I told them that we were going to the computer lab to do some work on the Internet. Those who didn't have access to the Internet at home were particularly excited to have this opportunity. Once in the lab, those students with computer experience helped the novices get on to the Internet and begin accessing the Web sites. Before long everyone was busily reading the questions and accessing the sites where they could find the answers. “I've already got that answer. It's in the second paragraph,” one student laughed as he raced to the next question. That class period went by very quickly, and the students were disappointed that it was time to shut down the computers. “Are we going to get to come back tomorrow?” was repeated several times. “Yes,” I said. “We'll be able to come back to finish the hunt.”

“Discovering Japan” was a great success. It not only tapped into my students' avid interest in the Net, it also required them to use other computer skills, including word processing, to complete the hunt. They were engaged, active learners who discovered the Japanese culture -- which, in turn, enabled them to develop an appreciation for Lincoln's experiences in Japan that they otherwise would not have had. As we read through Gary Soto's story, one student remarked that he would be afraid to leave his home to go so far away, but that he had learned so many exciting things about Japan that if he had to go somewhere, he would be glad if it were to Japan.

I was surprised this year when one of my new seventh graders asked me when she would be able to go on the Internet to do the “Japanese thing.” I asked her how she knew about it. She said, “Oh, a friend of my brother was in your class last year and he told us about those Zoomoe [Sumo] wrestlers.” That's just what every teacher wants to hear.

About the Author

Janice Rozich is a language arts and computer applications teacher at Lake Ridge Middle School, in Gary, Indiana, USA. The school draws its students from a closely knit white, Hispanic, and African-American community known as Calumet Township. Contact Janice by e-mail at masterdegree@hotmail.com.

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Citation: Rozich, J.L. (2000, November). New Literacies in Action: Connecting with the world -- creating Web-based treasure hunts. Reading Online, 4(5). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=/newliteracies/action/rozich/index.html

Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted November 2000
© 2000 International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232