Introduction Task Process Evaluation Conclusion

Introduction

What is it like being in Middle School in Africa? How is life different from what we know and take for granted? African culture is very different from American culture. Let’s see how and why. Choose a country of your choice and research the cultural aspects of that country.

Task

In this Web Quest you will be responsible for finding critical information about an African Country of your choice, completing a graphic organizer and creating a Power Point Presentation to be viewed by the class. You will be teaching this information to your classmates as a lesson and writing a lesson plan to submit.

Jobs: Moderator, Recorder, Photographer, Researcher(s), Presenter

Project 1: Each group will randomly select a country from the continent of Africa.

Project 2: Each student should write a prediction essay. This essay should include what you think the African Culture in general is like, what it would be like to be a teenager in Africa, and how our culture and their culture are alike and different.

Project 3: Share your prediction essay with your group and discuss their accuracies. The recorder should record which predictions the group think are the most accurate.

Project 4: Next, you need to search the sites listed in the Resources section in order to find the information you need to complete your graphic organizer.

Project 5: Now you need to complete your graphic organizer. Write in all the necessary information. You may need to look at a variety of sites to accurately complete your organizer.

Project 6: At this point you should have your graphic organizer completed. I would now like you to make a list of 3 web sites that you saw that may not have necessarily contained information you needed for your graphic organizer but that you found interesting.

Project 7: You will create a Power Point Presentation containing at least one slide per cultural characteristic.

Project 8: Each member of the group is responsible for creating at least two slides to be put into the Power Point Presentation.

Project 9: Upon completion of your Power Point, you must use it in some way to teach the class about your country.

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Process

The following suggests steps to take to complete this project. First, READ all of the steps involved. Then, as you are assigned different projects, click on the underlined words to access the information needed to complete that project.

Choose a country to research.
Write a Prediction Essay.
Create a PowerPoint lesson describing your selected country

You will be presenting your research to your class. Make sure to do your best work possible!!!!!

The following resources are available to you to conduct your research of your African Country. You may browse links within a site but please limit your time doing so.

Countries http://www.woyaa.com/links/COUNTRIES/index.html

Yahooligans for the countries sites http://www.yahooligans.com/Around_the_World/

Countries Geographic http://www.geographic.org/

Electronic guide for African Resources http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/menu_EduKNTR.html

Africa on line http://www.africaaction.org/inet.htm

Current events in Africa http://www.africaonline.com/site/africa/news289.jsp

African Languages http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/menu_EduLANG.html

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Evaluation

Group Planning -- Research Project:

Africa Research

CATEGORY	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Group Timeline	Group independently develops a reasonable, complete timeline describing when different parts of the work (e.g.,planning, research, first draft, final draft) will be done. All students in group can independently describe the high points of the timeline.	Group independently develops a timeline describing when most parts of the work will be done. All students in group can independently describe the high points of the timeline.	Group independently develops a timeline describing when most parts of the work will be done. Most students can independently describe the high points of the timeline.	Group needs adult help to develop a timeline AND/OR several students in the group cannot independently describe the high points of the timeline.
Delegation of Responsibility	Each student in the group can clearly explain what information is needed by the group, what information s/he is responsible for locating, and when the information is needed.	Each student in the group can clearly explain what information s/he is responsible for locating.	Each student in the group can, with minimal prompting from peers, clearly explain what information s/he is responsible for locating.	One or more students in the group cannot clearly explain what information they are responsible for locating.
Plan for Organizing Information	Students have developed a clear plan for organizing the information as it is gathered and in the final research product. All students can independently explain the planned organization of the research findings.	Students have developed a clear plan for organizing the information in the final research product. All students can independently explain this plan.	Students have developed a clear plan for organizing the information as it is gathered. All students can independently explain most of this plan.	Students have no clear plan for organizing the information AND/OR students in the group cannot explain their organizational plan.

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Story Writing: Prediction Essay

CATEGORY	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Writing Process	Student devotes a lot of time and effort to the writing process (prewriting, drafting, reviewing, and editing). Works hard to make the story wonderful.	Student devotes sufficient time and effort to the writing process (prewriting, drafting, reviewing, and editing). Works and gets the job done.	Student devotes some time and effort to the writing process but was not very thorough. Does enough to get by.	Student devotes little time and effort to the writing process. Doesn't seem to care.
Introduction	First paragraph has a "grabber" or catchy beginning.	First paragraph has a weak "grabber".	A catchy beginning was attempted but was confusing rather than catchy.	No attempt was made to catch the reader's attention in the first paragraph.
Focus on Assigned Topic	The entire story is related to the assigned topic and allows the reader to understand much more about the topic.	Most of the story is related to the assigned topic. The story wanders off at one point, but the reader can still learn something about the topic.	Some of the story is related to the assigned topic, but a reader does not learn much about the topic.	No attempt has been made to relate the story to the assigned topic.
Organization	The story is very well organized. One idea or scene follows another in a logical sequence with clear transitions.	The story is pretty well organized. One idea or scene may seem out of place. Clear transitions are used.	The story is a little hard to follow. The transitions are sometimes not clear.	Ideas and scenes seem to be randomly arranged.
Spelling and Punctuation	There are no spelling or punctuation errors in the final draft. Character and place names that the author invented are spelled consistently throughout.	There is one spelling or punctuation error in the final draft.	There are 2-3 spelling and punctuation errors in the final draft.	The final draft has more than 3 spelling and punctuation errors.

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Oral Presentation Rubric : Africa Lesson

CATEGORY	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Preparedness	Student is completely prepared and has obviously rehearsed.	Student seems pretty prepared but might have needed a couple more rehearsals.	The student is somewhat prepared, but it is clear that rehearsal was lacking.	Student does not seem at all prepared to present.
Comprehension	Student is able to accurately answer almost all questions posed by classmates about the topic.	Student is able to accurately answer most questions posed by classmates about the topic.	Student is able to accurately answer a few questions posed by classmates about the topic.	Student is unable to accurately answer questions posed by classmates about the topic.
Content	Shows a full understanding of the topic.	Shows a good understanding of the topic.	Shows a good understanding of parts of the topic.	Does not seem to understand the topic very well.
Collaboration with Peers	Almost always listens to, shares with, and supports the efforts of others in the group. Tries to keep people working well together.	Usually listens to, shares with, and supports the efforts of others in the group. Does not cause "waves" in the group.	Often listens to, shares with, and supports the efforts of others in the group but sometimes is not a good team member.	Rarely listens to, shares with, and supports the efforts of others in the group. Often is not a good team member.

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Multimedia Project: Africa PowerPoint

CATEGORY	Excellent	Good	Satisfactory	Needs Improvement
Content	Covers topic in-depth with details and examples. Subject knowledge is excellent.	Includes essential knowledge about the topic. Subject knowledge appears to be good.	Includes essential information about the topic but there are 1-2 factual errors.	Content is minimal OR there are several factual errors.
Organization	Content is well organized using headings or bulleted lists to group related material.	Uses headings or bulleted lists to organize, but the overall organization of topics appears flawed.	Content is logically organized for the most part.	There was no clear or logical organizational structure, just lots of facts.
Requirements	All requirements are met and exceeded.	All requirements are met.	One requirement was not completely met.	More than one requirement was not completely met.
Attractiveness	Makes excellent use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance to presentation.	Makes good use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance to presentation.	Makes use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. but occasionally these detract from the presentation content	Use of font, color, graphics, effects etc. but these often distract from the presentation content.

Conclusion

Present your lesson and PowerPoint Presentation to the class

Permission Statement

We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL.

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