Web Quests for The House of Mango Street

After having heard several of my classmates present on The House of Mango Street, I am highly interested in teaching this novel to my freshman classes for the upcoming year. I anticipated teaching this novel last year, but it took me longer than expected to get through I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. Although I have looked at a variety of web quests, I have narrowed my choices down to the ones listed below. I feel that these websites are the most streamlined of the bunch on the web and they are easy to navigate. Moreover, they have set aside specific benchmarks for the students with clear and engaging tasks.

http://coe.west.asu.edu/students/blarson/wquest/index.htm
The web site listed above is extremely well-organized and requires students to write a persuasive essay that explains “whether or not American students could spend a healthy, happy year immersed in the culture presented through a foreign exchange program in a Central or South American country.” This web quest is excellent because it provides a clear set of parameters for the students by breaking up the writing process into five steps:

1. Determining Research Categories
2. Organizing Research Information
3. Selecting Evaluative Criteria
4. Compiling the data
5. Peer Editing
6. Submitting the Product

The web quest has also provided a rubric to accompany this writing assignment.

One web quest that really requires students to employ their critical thinking skills can be seen at the following link: http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/kearny/myhouse/
Students are asked to justify the decisions that they make in designing a house with particular furnishings to represent Esperanza. This activity could be highly enjoyable for students and it really gets them to extend their thinking beyond the novel. They must perform a thorough character study of Esperanza in order to design a house that adequately displays her traits. This web quest also has a prepared rubric for evaluating students.

One final web quest that caught my attention gives students three tasks to choose from. These options are helpful in terms of differentiating the product and giving students some freedom to explore their interests. Students can either examine Esperanza’s interactions with other people through her conversations, create a mini-skit in conducting interviews and role-playing, or allowing students to create vignettes about their own lives. In any case, this web quest allows students to be as creative as they want.
http://webquest.org/questgarden/lessons/09571-051129200337/index.htm