Grasps

Your Name: Penney Samuel
Content Area: English/Language Arts
Topic: Immigration
Grade Level: 6-8
Product/Performance: a newspaper article

1. Briefly describe the following components of your WebQuest.
2. At the end of class, copy and paste your GRASPS plan into the online journal.
3. Don’t forget to sign your name.

GRASPS
Goal
(introduction page) Your task is to produce a newspaper article.
Role
(introduction page) You are a reporter and have been asked to write a news article that challenges or refutes common misconceptions about immigration in the United States.
Audience
(introduction page) Your audience is the staff, faculty, and student body of Monticello Middle School, a Tier I school with a diverse student population.
Situation
(introduction page) At your school, Monticello, there are a lot of students from other countries. Some of them speak English pretty well, but others struggle with it or don’t speak it at all. You’ve heard some students calling these kids names and saying mean things about them and their parents. You want everyone at the school to be more tolerant of each other, so you decide to write an article for the school newspaper.
Product or Performance
(task page) You will create a newspaper article that challenges or refutes common misconceptions about immigration.
Standards
(standards page) 1.5.1. Publishes in a format that is appropriate for specific audiences and purposes.

Beliefs

What are your beliefs about teaching and learning with technology?

                Technology offers students and teacher another medium with which to communicate. Sometimes technology creates problems if there are glitches or incompatibility issues. In schools that service lower income students, the classroom might be the only place they have access to the internet and word processing programs. On a broader scale, technology offers students a gateway to art, culture, and knowledge on an immediate and almost endless basis.

Describe how technology has supported learning in classrooms you have observed

I have taken several classes that require a presentation type project at the end of the semester. Most students know how to and often use power point presentations for these projects.  In one class a group of students made a MySpace page for a character from literature. They had their character post notes and fill out the about me section. I thought this was a relevant way to bring a literary character into the 21^st century that would appeal to middle and high school students.