Overview

In this activity, students learn about literature by doing an online scavenger hunt and publishing their findings in an interactive slide show.

Literary scavenger hunt

Scavenging the Web can be rewarding - if you know how to search.

Lesson plan information

Teacher guide

Objectives

• Students will develop an interest in learning about literature.
• Students will develop confidence and resourcefulness in searching the Web.
• Students will answer questions and solve problems creatively and interactively.

Prerequisite skills

• Knowledge of literature appropriate for grade level and scavenger hunt questions
• Experience browsing and searching the Web
• Fundamentals of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, Microsoft Word 97/98, and Microsoft PowerPoint 97/98

How to begin

1. Before class, you'll need to develop a list of questions for the scavenger hunt. Sample questions are provided below, but you might want to modify this list to reflect your particular curriculum. If so, here are a few guidelines:

• Clear, concise questions with brief answers are best for this activity.
• Questions can pertain to literature that the students have already encountered in the classroom, but should also introduce new material.
• Make sure that the answers can be found in the available sources.
• Sample questions for the hunt:

1. Name two novels by Ernest Hemingway. When were they were published?
2. Who wrote "Travels with Charlie"? Describe Charlie.
3. Define the "American dream" and give an example from a novel you've read.
4. Who wrote "The Lord of the Flies"? Briefly describe the setting and theme.
5. What do the protagonists in "The Scarlet Letter" and "Fahrenheit 451" have in common?
6. What is the nature of the conflict in "To Kill A Mockingbird"?
7. Who wrote "1984"? What is the protagonist's greatest fear?
8. Name two plays by Arthur Miller. Give a one-sentence description of each.
9. Where does a symbol of God appear in "The Great Gatsby"?
10. Name a nature writer from the school of American Romanticism.

2. For the scavenger hunt, group the students in teams of two. Give each team a set of the Student activity pages and the list of questions.
3. Set a deadline for the hunt itself (such as one class period), and tell the students that they will have additional time to create their PowerPoint shows.
4. Inform students that each team will have the opportunity to present their finished PowerPoint presentation to the class. Students will then vote to decide the winning team. Remind the students that they should base their vote on content as well as design of the presentations.

Resources and web links

• University of Delaware Library Guide to English and American Literature You can find more great links here.
• Library of Congress Search the stacks by subject, title, or author.

Student activity

Description

If the phrase "classic literature" makes you think of dusty old books, think again. How about word-searchable Web sites and hypertext? In this activity, you and a classmate will team up in a literary scavenger hunt on the Web. Then you'll present your findings in the form of an interactive slide show.

Step 1: stalk your quarry

• Software: Microsoft Word 97/Word 98, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0
• What to do
  Track down the answers to your scavenger hunt questions

Note: Carefully formatting your questions and answers in Word will make it a lot easier to create your slide show later.

1. In Word, type a neat list of all your scavenger hunt questions, with paragraph returns and no blank lines between them. (Don't number the questions—you can do that later in PowerPoint.) Save this document. You will use it for the table of contents in your slide show.
2. Create a separate document to collect your answers. Start by copying your question list into this document. As you find your answers, enter them as paragraphs directly beneath the questions, with no blank lines in between. At the end of each answer, include the full URL of the location where you found it.
3. Indent your answer paragraphs by clicking on each one and then clicking the Increase Indent button in the Formatting toolbar. When you are done, your questions should be flush left, your answers indented, and all your text should be Normal style (as indicated in the Formatting toolbar).
4. Start your search at the Web sites listed above. Be alert: You may run across the answer to one question while looking for another.
5. Keep your answers brief—no more than a few sentences.

Step 2: show off your catch

• Software: Microsoft Word 97/Word 98, Microsoft PowerPoint 97/ PowerPoint 98
• What to do
  Convert your questions and answers into a PowerPoint presentation

1. Open your Word document. From the File menu, choose Send To and select Microsoft PowerPoint.
2. PowerPoint opens, displaying your newly created slide presentation in Outline view. Select Slide in the View menu and look at your slides. Each slide should have a question in the title box at the top and the corresponding answer in the text box below. Adjust font size and text box dimensions, where necessary, to make questions and answers fit.
3. From the Format menu, select Apply Design. Select a design you like and click OK. (You can repeat this later to change the design, if you want to.) To make additional color changes, you can select Background and Slide Color Scheme from the Format menu.
4. Try animating your answers. Select Slide in the View menu, and click on the answer text in slide 1. From the Slide Show menu, select a Preset Animation option. Preview your animation by selecting View Show from the Slide Show menu.
5. Now animate all your slides. You can even use different animation options on each slide.

Step 3: make it interactive

• Software: Microsoft Word 97/Word 98, Microsoft PowerPoint 97/ PowerPoint98
• What to do
  Make an interactive slide show to present your findings to the class

1. Create a few slides for your interactive Table of Contents. Choose New Slide from the Insert menu. The New Slide dialog box appears. Select the Bulleted List AutoLayout and click OK. A new blank slide will be added to your presentation. Repeat this process to create two or three new slides. With either Outline or Slide Sorter selected in View, drag your new blank slides to the beginning of your show.
2. Go to your first slide in Slide view. Click in the title box and type a title for your show.
3. Go to your Word document that listed the questions only. Copy the list and paste it into the text box on slide 1.
4. The list of questions will probably be too long to fit on one slide. Cut the remaining questions from the bottom of the list and paste them into the text box on the second slide. Repeat this process to accommodate all the scavenger hunt questions. Print a Handout version of your slide show (6 slides per page) to refer to for the following steps.
5. Now you can add a button next to each question in the table of contents that will link directly to the chosen slide.

Action Buttons make it easy to navigate through your PowerPoint show.

1. Go to the beginning of your show and select Slide in the View menu. Select Action Buttons in the Slide Show menu, and choose the Custom (blank) button. The mouse pointer becomes a crosshair with which you can draw a button next to a question in the table of contents.
2. When you are finished drawing your button, the Action Settings dialog box opens. On the Mouse Click tab, choose Hypertext link to slide, and select the slide that corresponds to the question you are linking. Click OK to close the Action Settings box. To test your link, switch to Slide Show mode (in the View menu).
3. Repeat this process for all of the questions in your table of contents.

6. Add three more navigation buttons to each slide:

• A Home button for jumping back to the table of contents from anywhere in the show.
• Previous and Next buttons to let you move forward or backward through the show.
• To place these buttons on every slide, select Master, Slide Master from the View menu. Select the Home, Previous, and Next buttons from the Action Button choices. Place them at the very bottom of the Slide Master so they won't overlap your text boxes. When you're done, test them by selecting View Show in the Slide Show menu.

7. Now you can present your scavenger hunt results in an exciting, fully interactive PowerPoint show. Present it to your class with pride!

This content is reprinted with permission from Microsoft. For additional content, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx.