MLTI Lesson:
Quick Introduction to Literature with Maine InfoNet

Nancy Grant posted this on her school staff's First Class Bulletin Board for English teachers grades 7-12, and the Spanish teacher. This is just an introduction piece, and she plans to teach her student library workers to offer lessons on using each resource. The students travel to the teachers' rooms during the teacher's prep time to give lessons.

Feel free to copy, adapt, and use it.

Where to start to avoid wasting time surfing: http://libraries.maine.edu/mainedatabases/

Or find it from the school web site: www.msad41.us Choose "Navigate here", "Info Center", "Ebsco

Once you are on the Maine Infonet site, choose "Literature"

1. Academic Search covers 3300 scholarly publications
2. Britannica is the Rolls Royce of encyclopedias, includes selected web links
3. Literature Resource Center focuses on authors
4. Master File is general magazine, with 1,850 full text and 5,000 book reviews
5. Net Library includes full text literary criticism
6. Novelist has activities, units, booktalks, articles, book discussion guides along with the lists based on authors and genres.
7. Scribner Writers offers essays on 1600 authors
8. Twayne's Author Series includes critical introductions to authors

Classroom task: divide students into 8 teams , each team takes one of the above 8 resources, all research the same author, report out on use of the resources. Or each team take different author, use all 8 resources and report out on resource and/or author. Or 2-3 teams of 8, each person in team do one resource and share with team what found in resource.

Assessment = teaming skills, sharing about how to use each resource, author information gained, reporting out process. Also can do follow-up assessment with individuals finding and presenting their own individual author research. This pushes individuals to gain skills and not rely on team for all the work.

Posted to MeLibs by Nancy Grant: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:21:52 PM