Using the Big6to research

American Authors

                     

1. Task Definition

• Learn about an American author and the time period he/she wrote about.

• Write an essay discussing how the author’s experiences and background influenced his/her writing.

• Create a PowerPoint presentation and prepare materials for teaching about your author.

• Biographical information• Literary information• Historical information

What are your information needs?

What do you need to do?

Author Choices- only one student may research each author listed

• Louisa May Alcott

• Sherwood Anderson

• Maya Angelou

• Edgar Rice Burroughs

• Truman Capote

• Willa Cather

• John William Cheever

• Kate Chopin

• James Fenimore Cooper

• Stephen Crane

• Theodore Dreiser

• Ralph Waldo Ellison •Ralph Waldo Emerson•Karen Louise Erdrich• William Faulkner•Charlotte Perkins Gilman•Ernest Hemingway•William Dean Howells•Langston Hughes•Zora Neale Hurston•Washington Irving• Harriet Jacobs•Henry James

Author Choices- only one student may research each author listed

• Sarah Orne Jewett

• Sinclair Lewis

• Jack London

• Herman Melville

• Edna St. Vincent Millay

• Toni Morrison

• Flannery O’Connor

• Eugene O’Neill

• Joyce Carol Oates

• Edgar Allan Poe

• Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Gertrude Stein•John Steinbeck• James Thurber•Jean Toomer• John Updike•Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.• Edith Wharton• Thomas Wolfe• Richard Wright

2. Information Seeking Strategies

What resources can be used?

Use text resources from the library

• Check Athena– Start with your author’s name– Use the keywords “authors” and “literature”

• Use general and specialized encyclopedias– Literature and Its Times– Encyclopedia of the 20th Century– Dictionary of Literary Biography– Contemporary Literary Criticism

Use electronic sources

• For Biographical Information– Novelist (look for web links to author pages)

– EBSCO• Literary Reference Center

• For Historical Information– World News Digest– EBSCO

3. Location and AccessWhere can you find the resources?

• Locate your print resources on the shelf (don’t forget to use the index in each source!)

• Use electronic services, from the library homepage

• Try a directory such as Librarian’s Index to the Internet

• Use a web search engine such as Killer Info, Google, or for advanced searching try a Meta-search engine like Ixquick, Metacrawler or Vivisimo.– Search for your specific author

– Search for “authors”

4. Use the Information• Engage the information – that means read it! • Extract relevant information from the sources –

We will learn how to use Inspiration© to take notes and make an outline. Save appropriate graphics. (Do NOT print from Internet!)

• Create the bibliography as you work – Library Notes Sheets for books today

– NoodleTools for electronic sources

5. SynthesisWhat will it take to finish the job?

• Use your Inspiration© outline to write your paper

• Export Inspiration© outline to PowerPoint– Fine tune the PowerPoint presentation

• Create your Work Cited page using NoodleTools

6. EvaluationHow will you know you did the job well?

• Before completing the assignment:– Check your rubric to be sure you have carried

out all instructions in task definition– Proof your work– Give yourself a grade

• After the grading:– Did you get the grade you thought you would?

Why?– If you were to do this assignment again, in what

way might you do it differently?