Creating Internet Author Activity Centers

In our last "Let's Talk" we addressed the idea of Author Studies as a wonderful way to promote culturally conscious literature. We provided some web resources, and some of our favorite author picks to help you get started in developing an Author Study. Now that you have some resources, we encourage further use of technology by providing your students with the opportunity to work at Internet Author Activity Centers.
An Internet Activity Center is an electronic version of a traditional Learning Center. It involves finding and bookmarking a cite that supports your curriculum and developing and assigning activities related to that site. Teachers with one Internet computer connection can ensure that all students have access by developing a class schedule of half hour blocks of time throughout the school day and week so that pairs of students have access to these electronic learning centers. At the end of the week the classroom teacher brings closure by conducting an Internet Workshop in which students share what they've learned about their Internet Activity, ask questions and gather information about their upcoming work (Leu & Diadiun Leu, 1999).

We encourage you to visit pre-existing Activity Centers posted on the web. We recommend the highly acclaimed CyberGuides. This site provides a variety of resources including ready-made on-line Activity Centers for 128 literary titles (K-12), some of which are bilingual/Spanish. Each of the CyberGuides includes a student and teacher edition, standards, a task and process by which it may be completed. It also contains teacher-selected web sites and a rubric to assess standards. The site address is: http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/cyberguide.html.

Internet Activity Centers are provided for multicultural books such as Friedman's How My Parent's Learned to Eat (K-3), Lawrence Yep's Dragonwings (4-5), Naimoo's Journey to Jo'burg (6-8), and Corky Gonzales' Chicano Literature: I am Joaquin(9-12).
An example of a teacher-made Internet Author Activity Center is a scavenger hunt on author Faith Ringgold created by third grade teacher Johnna DiVito at Carrington Elementary School in Waterbury. This is an abbreviated version of Ms. Di Vita's Internet Activity and was designed to follow an introduction of Ringgold's book Tar Beach.

Flying High with Faith Ringgold on the Internet
http://www.faithringgold.com/ringgold/default.htm

1. What are the names of Faith Ringgold's children?

2. Faith Ringgold is a professor of art. At which university does she teach? Is she the type of professor you would like to have some day? Explain your response.

3. Faith Ringgold has several new books coming out. What are the titles of two of them?

4. Faith Ringgold has posted a story on her web site for you to view. Find it and print it.

At this time your flight needs to prepare for landing. Click on the file button and click on the "close" button. You have now landed with lots of information and some souvenirs too! At this time you and your co-pilot need to do some post-flight work. I would like you to read the story you printed. When you have finished reading the story choose a response activity to the story from the list below.

a. illustrate the story
b. rewrite a section of the story
c. comment on the story

We hope you capitalize on what the Internet has to offer in a way that supports your curriculum and which highlights literature for our global society.

References
Leu, D.J. & Leu, D.D. (1997, 1999). Teaching with the Internet: Lessons from the classroom. MA: Christopher Gordon Publishers, Inc.