Webquest lesson

TITLE:

http://questgarden.com/94/80/9/100119190451/

Qing Ming (Pure Brightness) Festival and ghost stories

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Festivals/78319.htm

SUMMARY:

The Qing Ming (Pure Brightness) Festival falls on April 4-6 each year. It is a mixture of happiness and sadness. Chinese people offer sacrifices to their ancestors and sweep their tombs. I thought it fitting to integrate this festival with a ghost story lesson using resources on the internet.

LEVEL: Intermediate - advanced (12 students)

TIME: 60 minutes

LANGUAGE OUTCOMES

Lexis related to ghosts and ghost stories: (lots of descriptive language eg adjectives of feelings), narrative tenses, developing reading skills, note-taking skills, speaking skills and writing skills. Also, this is very much culturally orientated and I hope will be interesting and motivating.

SITES / TECHNOLOGY USED: Castle of Spirits http://www.castleofspirits.com/storypg.html

ICT OUTCOMES:

Practice use of the Internet as a resource for learning

Use of PowerPoint to help students in the telling of their story

Students submit their stories to the web

NOTES

Lesson stages

a) 10 minutes: The first task leads into the topic of ghosts (a brainstorming activity in which students think of as many things as they can that frighten people.

b) The website also has a YouTube page http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Castleofspirits which can be used as a whole class activity to set the scene and elicit related vocabulary.

c) 20 minutes: Students then go to the website and select 2 stories for which they complete a worksheet of questions.

d) 20 minutes: Finally, the students share the stories they have read and decide which one is the best and why?

e) 10 minutes: Whole class feedback as each group of 4 tells the class about the best story they have chosen.

f) The follow up activity asks students to write a ghost story of their own using PowerPoint to help them tell it. Also, they can submit their own, final draft stories to the website they used to research.

I hope that this will be an interesting way to integrate the internet into a skills lesson

Preparation

I have already searched the internet for a good site for this lesson. However, beforehand I will double-check that the link is ok. Also, I will arrange for a computer room in advance to do the lesson. I will also prepare a worksheet for students to use to answer questions about 2 ghost stories on the website. This will help them to share summaries of the story and act as a guide when they write their own. There are also many good guidelines for story writing on the site itself when you click on 'submit your own story'.

Online

Students will be directed in pairs to a website where they will be asked to answer questions about 2 ghost stories.

Offline

Once students have taken their notes, they will change pairs and tell each other about the ghost stories they have read. After this, in groups of 4, with their original partners, they will choose the best of their ghost stories and tell the class about it.

Follow Ups / Variations:

Students can make PowerPoint slides to help them tell their stories to the class.

Students submit their own stories to the website using the guidelines provided

	1	2
Where did this happen?
When did this happen?
Who experienced this story?
What happened?
Do you believe it?