Twain on a Time Line

There is no question, from my experience, that spreadsheet technology within the classroom is most often utilized for "show and tell" purposes, when employed at all. The most personally relevant reason for this is an apparent difficulty in transferring the format to the language arts domain. There are not many useful examples of applicable lessons floating around, and most of the ones that I encountered deal specifically with skills such as spelling and vocabulary, which seem limited in their flexibility. Spreadsheets could certainly benefit students in verbal development, but as far as knowledge generation...remains to be seen. Presenting an unusual format for word recognition and vocabulary practice would provide a means for motivation, but the finite options for such tasks could also be achieved by other means.

I did locate one intriguing lesson plan that combines several disciplines and culminates with a pretty involved writing assignment. I would utilize it as a bit of a research assignment, which would require exposure to either a group of related (or unrelated) authors, or even the collection of writings of a specific author. The students would transfer the data to a spreadsheet, and would then create what is referred to as a Bio-graph, which could offer a meaningful representation of a genre of literature, the life and work of one author, related time lines, etc. The possibilities for such an assignment are exciting and much more varying than the spelling or vocab tasks, and they could be introduced pretty easily to several grade levels/achievement levels. The plan in its original form directs students to interview each other, but I would be more apt to include it with the study of literary periods or specific authors. One benefit of such an approach is that the spreadsheet format could be learned at the beginning of the year, with multiple uses parallelling multiple units. This seems to be a unique approach that incorporates technology appropriately, and it is probably more productive than assigning a chapter outline. Exciting!

Lesson at: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1021