It's A Dog's Life!

A WebQuest for 4th-6th Grade Language Arts

Introduction:

You have been hired by Purina as a salesperson for Puppy Chow. Your first assignment includes going to the local elementary school in an attempt to raise consumer interests of youth. This requires research on your part since you have never dealt with young people before. How will you present information to the students that will spark their interests in dogs and dog food?

The Tasks:

The following tasks will help you prepare your presentation to your young audience. As you complete each task, you will:

discover the importance of working dogs,
learn where dogs come from,
identify dogs that have been the main characters in television series,
identify dogs that have been the main characters in comic strips,
identify dogs that have been the main characters in books, and
create a PowerPoint presentation to present to the elementary students.

The Process:

To successfully accomplish the tasks above, you will have to complete the following items. You can complete each process by clicking on the links.

1. There are certain dogs that have been used as working dogs. Read about the different ways that dogs are used to help complete different tasks. Construct a chart that demonstrates the different ways that dogs work.
2. Discover the origin of dogs. View the video clip that tells about the dog's history. In your personal response journals, write a paragraph that explains the main ideas of the video.
3. Many animal trainers believe that dogs are easier to work with. That's why Lassie, America's favorite collie, has been on television for over 50 years! View a clip from the Lassie television series. Next, compare Lassie with another famous dog that has been used in TV shows. Illustrate your comparisons using a Venn Diagram.
4. There are even comic strip dogs. Snoopy is an important character in the Peanuts comic strip. Read Snoopy's character profile. Next, select any Peanuts picture to color from the online coloring page to print out for yourself. Have fun!!
5. Several award winning books have dogs as main characters. Call of the Wild by Jack London is one of these types of books. Read Chapter One from this book, and create a book jacket that would be excellent for this book.
6. Using the PowerPoint template, create a slide show presentation for the students at the elementary school. Be sure your presentation is age-appropriate.

The Evaluation:

The following rubric will be used to assess individual performance on the tasks above:

	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4
Identifies the importance of working dogs	Can identify one way working dogs are helpful to humans.	Can identify a few of the ways working dogs are important to humans.	Can identify many ways working dogs are helpful to humans.	Can identify several ways working dogs are important to humans.
Demonstrates knowledge of the dog's origin	Can write a paragraph that gives at least one main detail about the dog's origin.	Can write a paragraph that gives a few details about the dog's origin.	Can write a paragraph that gives many details about the dog's origin.	Can write a paragraph that gives several details about the dog's origin..
Compares/Contrasts characteristics of two TV dogs on a Venn Diagram	Can construct a Venn Diagram correctly and is able to compare/contrast two different TV dogs. Venn Diagram contains at least one comparison/contrast phrases.	Can construct a Venn Diagram correctly and is able to compare /contrast two different TV dogs. Venn Diagram contains a few comparison/contrast phrases.	Can construct a Venn Diagram correctly and is able to compare/contrast two different TV dogs. Venn Diagram contains many comparison/contrast phrases.	Can construct a Venn Diagram correctly and is able to compare/contrast two different TV dogs. Venn Diagram contains several comparison/contrast phrases.
Demonstrates knowledge of Snoopy's character profile and selects Peanuts picture to color online.	Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting a beginning level of performance.	Can describe Snoopy's character in a few ways, access online coloring sheet with assistance, use online tools to color sheet; has difficulty printing completed page.	Can describe Snoopy's character in many ways, access online coloring sheet, use online tools to color sheet, and print completed page with very few problems.	Can describe Snoopy's character in several ways, access online coloring sheet, use online tools to color sheet, and print completed page with no problems at all.
Demonstrates background knowledge of Call of the Wild by creating a book jacket for the book.	Creates a book jacket that is neither colorful or neat; does not give any details about the story's events.	Creates a book jacket that is not very colorful or neat; gives only a few details about the story's events.	Creates a book jacket that is colorful, neat, and gives many details about the story's events.	Creates a book jacket that is colorful, neat, and gives several details about the story's events.
Designs a PowerPoint presentation for elementary students	PowerPoint presentation is age appropriate and does not contain any student-added graphics.	PowerPoint presentation is age-appropriate and contains only one extra graphic image	PowerPoint Presentation is age-appropriate and contains a few appealing graphics related to the presentation.	PowerPoint presentation is age-appropriate and contains appealing graphics related to the presentation.

Conclusion:
This webquest has hopefully helped you learn more about dogs and how humans use dogs to complete tasks. Perhaps, these activities have further sparked your interests in dogs. Maybe, you will soon be a dog owner yourself.

Credits & References:

Thanks to 2Cool Animations for allowing me use of the graphic images that were used on this page.

Teacher Advice:
This lesson is designed for fourth through sixth grade Language Arts classes. This lesson can also be easily extended to upper grades, or even modified for the lower grades.

The learners will need to be familiar with maneuvering the mouse to click on the various links on this page.

The lesson is organized so that it is intended to be completed at the end of one week. The students can work on individual tasks during assigned computer times.

Students may have trouble with the PowerPoint template. It may be necessary for the teacher to have a mini-lesson on completing the template. The teacher should be sure to communicate that the template is a starting point for them. They can add more graphics and text boxes if necessary. It also may be necessary for the teacher to download Shockwave in order to access the online coloring sheets on the Snoopy website.

The teacher will need to have some familiarity with the Internet. The novice teacher could easily accomplish this WebQuest if he/she is familiar with the Internet.

The lesson could be extended to include the students selecting a certain breed of dog that would be the ideal pet. Students have to write a position paper and orally present to the class the reasons why their dog is the best breed.

Students could also be divided into groups in which they are assigned different tasks to complete. That group would be responsible for presenting their assignment to the rest of the class.

A field experience to a kennel would be an excellent resource for information on the different breeds of dogs.
Students could learn about the proper way to groom dogs.

Created for EDU 506 @ FHU School of Education by Sonya Cross on July 24, 2001.