A screen shot of the Webquest’s home page

Evaluation of a WebQuestLisa Chizek

Webquest: Literacy and Person by Deanya LattimoreLink to WebQuest

The webquest “Literacy and Person,” developed by Deanya Lattimore, is a project

designed for first year writing students in the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Writing

Program at Syracuse University. While the intended audience is college freshman

writers, the purpose of the webquest extends beyond writing and asks students to think

deeply about culture, literacy and the self. While curriculum standards are not addressed

explicitly, the expectation that the Webquest meets the department’s goals of connecting

writing, literacy, and culture is present in

the introduction and overall presentation

of the project. Additionally, the specific

educational goal of the Webquest is to

“consider different ‘frames’ through

which the person is studied” by

producing several writing activities

ranging from discussion posts, to journal

entries, and a reflection piece.

The pedagogical strategies are difficult to determine, but simulation and problem

solving is one common strategy used throughout. Students are asked to role play five

different characters (a metaphysical, a psychologist, a sociologist, an anthropologist, and

philosopher) and envision their response to literacy and the person. To successfully do

this, students much understand the frame-of-mind of each position by searching the

internet. This enables students to interact directly with the content to make an informed

response from each of the five perspectives. Some scaffolding is also used in the

research portion of the Webquest because while some resources are provided, students

are also expected to create their own searches.

The Webquest takes advantage of technology in several important ways. First, it

includes links to important internet sites that students can use to understand and question

the five different perspectives they are asked to take. In addition, the Webquest indicates

that other technology will be used in the completion of assignments—an online class

magazine, discussion forums, and responses posted online. While some aspects of this

Webquest could be reproduced by photocopying pages and handing them out to students,

the concept of connecting students to culture and literacy would be disjointed. The

internet opens up the cultural world to students and because the focus of this Webquest

has cultural influences at the core of its purpose, it is better served as an internet based

instruction.

While the Webquest generally works effectively, it is incredibly difficult to view

and read with ease. The Webquest meets one of the most common “pitfalls” of web

design by choosing a background that is distracting from the text. Below is an image of

the resources section of the Webquest to indicate the difficulty in reading the text:

A busy background prevents fluidity of reading and increases headaches!

Due to the busy background, I actually had to highlight the text (so that the background

was black) so I could read it thoroughly. In addition to the challenging background, the

Webquest is also ten years old and has not been updated since 1999. This leaves many

broken links because the linked websites are no longer in existence.

If I were to work on improving this Webquest, I would begin first by addressing

the problematic areas of timeliness and the background issue. In addition, some of the

language is vague in explanation (perhaps it was supplemented by classroom instruction)

but if this were designed to be all encompassing, some areas could use further

explanation. Overall, this was probably “cutting edge” at its time of creation ten years

ago, especially in the college classroom. In fact, this instructor chronicled her

experiences of integrating Webquests into college writing courses through this article:

Webquests Go To College. I stumbled across the article first then her Webquest, but it

will be a resource I consider when creating my own Webquest. The article is both

interesting and informative, but more importantly, it reexamines how and why Webquests

can have a role in higher education.