Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones

Educational Application of Word

Description:

The following document is an instructional handout for students to complete at the beginning of our unit on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Although there is already a wealth of materials available on this novel, those available resources were never a perfect fit for my classroom. I felt that the use of Microsoft Word to make such a packet would be very valuable as it easily allows me to customize the packet to meet the particular needs of my class.

For example, I was able to design the biography of Mark Twain to include features of expository text, such as graphics, captions, and footnotes, which I wanted to discuss with my students. This discussion served a “double duty.” First, it allowed the students to learn about the author and develop background information about how Mark Twain’s life influenced his work. Second, it provided an opportunity for me to discuss the features of expository text and strategies for reading such text as a review for the students’ upcoming midterm exam. Additionally, I was able to incorporate Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) into the packet. By inserting this aspect, it reinforced a previously discussed concept.

By recreating the chapter questions, I was able to choose only the questions that I felt would be most valuable for the students. Also, I incorporated a summarization strategy (one-word summaries) at the end of every chapter. This technique, as Brabec, Fishler, and Pitler stated, “requires students to analyze information at a fairly deep level, thus strengthening their understanding.”

Overall, by using technology to create such a document, I will be able to easily follow the cycle that Dr. Bell described of “Plan-Do-Study-Adjust”. I planned the precise elements that I wanted to include, created the actual packet, observed student performance and can now adjust the content accordingly. Based on their performance and their feedback on the packet, I can now use Word to quickly and easily improve upon the information that I give to my students in order to make a difference with technology.

Name:______Date: ______Hour:______

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

by Mark Twain

Packet 1Background Information

Chapters 1-2

Due Date:______Biography of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

(Mark Twain)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Clemens was the sixth child of seven children in his family. He was four when the family moved to nearby Hannibal, Missouri. There Samuel spent his boyhood, enchanted by the romance of river life—the steamboats, keelboats, and giant lumber rafts. Hannibal was an ideal place for a boy to grow up, with its woods and hills, its opportunities for fishing, and a nearby island in the river.

Samuel’s father died in 1847, when the boy was 11. From that time on, it became necessary for Samuel to help support his family. He became a delivery boy,
grocery clerk, and blacksmith’s helper during summers or after school. At the age of 13, he became a full-time apprentice1 to a local printer. When his older brother, Orion, established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a writer for the paper.

The Journal did not do well, and Samuel became restless. In 1853 he set out as a printer and worked his way eastward on newspapers in St. Louis, New York City, and Philadelphia. A few years later, Samuel met a steamboat pilot named Horace Bixby who agreed to take him on as an apprentice and teach him the mysteries of navigating the channels of the great and treacherous Mississippi River. For almost four years Clemens traveled the Mississippi; he later remembered these years as the most carefree of his life.

It was this experience that would later give Samuel a new name. The people that tested the water levels on the stern of the riverboats called out the depth in fathoms to the pilot so the boat wouldn’t run aground on a sand bar. “Mark twain” meant two fathoms, or twelve feet. This was the minimal depth the boat needed to be safe for navigation. It was in Virginia City in 1863, that “Mark Twain” was born when Clemens, then 27, signed a humorous travel account with that pseudonym.

1 Apprentice: someone who works for an employer for a fixed period of time in order to learn a particular skill or job

When the Civil War closed the Mississippi to steamboat traffic, Samuel tried his hand at prospecting for gold in California but discovered that getting rich wasn’t so easy. Later in life, he toured the United States giving humorous talks to packed theaters. Meanwhile, he had met Olivia Langdon. In 1870, they were married and, in 1871, they moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he and his family would live for the next 20 years—the happiest and most productive period of his life.

After having written boyhood friends asking them to send their recollections of old days in Hannibal, he published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876, a narrative of youthful escapades that became an immediate and continuing favorite. Tom Sawyer is perhaps Twain’s best book for a young audience. The setting was a small Mississippi River town, and the characters were the grownups and the children of the town in the 1830’s. The book’s nostalgic attitude and its wistful re-creation of pre-Civil War life are humorously spiced by its main character, Tom Sawyer. Tom is depicted as “a normal boy,” mischievous and irresponsible but goodhearted; and the book’s subplots show him winning triumphs again and again. The lifelike picture of a boy and his friends are enjoyed by both young and old.

Over the years, Twain wrote many other books including The Prince and the Pauper and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain was called an American humorist because his writing often made fun of the silly things that humans do. He used irony2 and satire3 to achieve his success in writing.

Always one to be dramatic, Twain predicted his own death. Since he was born in the year when Haley’s Comet was visible from Earth, he predicted that he would pass away when it appeared again. In 1910, when the comet was visible from earth again, he passed away. However, he left us with enduring pieces of literature that we will enjoy for years to come.

2 Irony: when you use words that are the opposite of what you really mean, often in order to be amusing

3 Satire: a way of criticizing something such as a group of people or a system, in which you deliberately make them seem funny so that people will see their faults

How Well Do You Know Mark Twain?

Directions: Based on the biography that you just read, first label each question’s QAR type. Remember, RT = Right There, TS = Think and Search, AM = Author and Me, OMO = On My Own. Then use the information from the biography to answer the following questions.

1.  What was Mark Twain’s real name? ______

2.  Why is a pseudonym? ______

______

______

3.  How old was Samuel when his father died? ______

4.  In what year was Clemens born? ______

5.  In what city and state was Clemens born? ______

6.  In what city and state did he spend most of his childhood? ______

7.  List three books written by Twain. Use correct capitalization.

1.  ______

2.  ______

3.  ______

8.  List four occupations (jobs) that Twain held during his lifetime.

1.  ______

2.  ______

3.  ______

4.  ______

9. Twain used satire in his writing. What is satire? Explain in your own words. ______

______

10. List four interesting facts about Twain’s life that are not already covered in the above questions.

1.  ______
______

2.  ______
______

3.  ______
______

4.  ______
______

11. Find and color the state of Missouri on the map below.

Title of Chapter 1: ______

1.  The purpose of Chapter One is to tell that…

a)  a new boy came to town.

b)  Tom always got into trouble.

c)  Tom didn’t like school.

d)  Aunt Polly often punished Tom.

2.  Tom’s attitude toward life was…

a)  carefree.

b)  serious.

c)  fearful.

d)  hostile.

3.  Choose one of the following questions to answer in a 5-sentence paragraph.

What do you think the author’s opinion of Sid was? Explain your answer.

OR

Do you like Sid? Explain your opinion.

______
______
______
______

______

One-Word Summary:

One word to summarize this chapter is ______because

______
______

Title of Chapter 2: ______

1.  When Tom wanted someone to believe something, he could be very…

a)  honest.

b)  convincing.

c)  rude.

d)  polite.

2.  When Tom convinced his friends to pay him to do his whitewashing, it is the opposite of what the reader expects to happen. This is an example of…

a)  setting.

b)  point of view.

c)  irony.

d)  characterization.

3.  Tom’s great law of human action is that people want something if it is…

a)  free.

b)  valuable.

c)  hard to get.

d)  new and shiny.

4.  Do you agree with Tom’s great law of human action? Why or why not?

______
______
______
______

One-Word Summary:

One word to summarize this chapter is ______because

______
______