Lesson 3 - Gathering Your Information
 

Instructional Objectives

Students will use on-line and off-line resources to gather information about the locations that they have chosen in their planning matrix focusing on features that will support their persuasive (advertising) focus.  The focus of this lesson is to find information that is appropriate to the students' storyboards, not to gather volumes of information that may or may not be used. 

Class time needed: 2 - 45 minute class periods

• 1 class period reviewing students' planning matrix and the design style sheets making storyboards for their video presentations
• 1 or 2  class sessions using on-line or off-line resources writing notes and citing sources
• Homework sessions to complete information gathering

Advance preparation and prerequisite knowledge/skills

• Note taking skills

• Cut and paste skills from web browser to word processing document

• Being able to use a scanner

Materials needed

• Completed Planning Matrix sheet
• Computers with on-line access & word processing software
• Scanner & scanning software
• Trade books and other off-line print materials for reference
• Materials for organizing notes, for example index cards, notebooks, lined paper
• Plain paper for storyboard activities
• Posted butcher paper sheets for design rubric and audience focus (bring to computer lab)

Vocabulary

storyboard, advertising, URL, bibliography,

Procedures

Session 1 - Making storyboards

Hand back teacher-reviewed planning matrix sheets.  Review with students the types of information that they will need to complete their visual presentations.  Hand out plain paper, students will need at least 5 sheets to start their storyboards.  Students will begin their storyboards with the following sheets: (Other storyboard sheets may be added later.)

• Title (includes title of report, name, and date)
• Historical Center
• National Park
• Tourist Center
• Economic Center

After reviewing the design features specifications rubric that students developed in the first lesson students will sketch storyboards for their visual presentations Each page of the storyboard needs to include a title, text section, and a graphics section.  Students will use these storyboards to choose items and text to include in their visual presentations.

Session 2 - Collecting Data

Remind students that they need to give credit for any material that they scan or copy off the internet.  Review proper citing of sources using the following websites:

• Evaluating websites http://yahooligans.com/tg/evaluatingwebsites.html
• Citing Electronic Sources http://yahooligans.com/tg/45.html
• Citing off-line sources http://dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/list.html

Students will collect  data on-line and off-line to fill in the storyboards.  Material collected on-line will be copied and pasted into a word processing document.  Students need to also copy and paste the URL beneath the copied material.  Material collected off-line can be written on the index cards or other paper and proper citing needs to be made on those sheets as well.

Good starting points are:

• States and Capitals    http://50states.com/

• National Park Service http://nps.gov/search.htm

• US Census Information http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/

• Atlas Pages http://worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/usa.htm

• Historical Societies http://obitlinkspage.com/hs/

• Family Tourism Guides http://newparentsguide.com/family-travel-guides.htm

 Set up a scanning station.  Have students type the citation for each resource under each scanned image.

Extensions

Students can prepare their storyboards in an graphics program such as Kid Pix®.

Homework

Students will probably need at least 2 days to complete the collection process.  Start the process in the computer lab.  Completion can be done at home or in class on on-line or off-line resources.  You may need more than one scanning session.

Evaluation

Students will use organizational features of printed or electronic text to locate relevant information.  Students will cite at least 3 information sources  for each of their characteristics/regions  that will include items relevant to their target audience.  This information will include bibliography citations for each reference. 

Storyboards will reflect features consistent to the collaboratively deigned rubric from Lesson 1 including text vs. graphic proportions.  There will be at least 5 sections to the storyboard that include a title page and pages for each of the 4 characteristics/regions chosen.

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