Name: Lucy Nunez

Date of Submission: November 16, 2008

The WebQuest I chose was called Little Rock 9, Integration 0? The topic was about racial desegregation
in the United States. Little Rock was a city in Arkansas in where 9 African-American students attended in
which was an all white school before they attended. Although the Supreme Court made the decision that
African-Americans can attend those schools, guards would stand in front of the school and not let the
African-American students in. This WebQuest was designed for students to research desegregation in the
US history, find strategies that can be used to segregate different racial groups, and to inform the people
about issues that were being argued about school desegregation. This WebQuest will allow the students to
engage in a learning process that they will enjoy by using technology to improve their research.

Little Rock 9, Integration 0? Collaborative WebQuest on Racial Desegregation in Schools,

http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/BHM/little_rock/, 9th Grade level.

WebQuest: Little Rock 9, Integration 0?

1. What are the guiding or essential questions that this Web quest addresses?
• What, if anything, should be done to racially desegregate U.S. schools?

In order to complete this web quest, students most know some background knowledge of
desegregation in history and information on Little Rock 9. The following are some guided
questions for the students to gather information on to build their knowledge.
• What exactly happened at Central High back in 1957?
• Who is Ernest Green?
• What place in history do the Little Rock Nine hold? How does this compare to how
they were viewed in 1957?

2. What are the literacy, research, and 21st Century skills targeted by the Web quest?

• While doing this Web quest on the Little Rock 9, the students are targeting many
skills in the literacy, research and 21st Century Skills.
• The literacy skills that are being targeted are comprehension skills and writing skills.
• The research skills that are being used is being able to research using different forms
of information to build your knowledge on topics that you might have not known
before.
• The 21st Century skills that are being targeted is using the Web quest form of strategy
to engage students in learning and gathering information.
• A 21st Century Skill is 1.1,5:Evalualting information found in selected sources on the
basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and
cultural context.
• Skill 2.1,4: Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize
information.
• Using a Web quest is more engaging than having students go on their own trying to
find information in websites that are probably not real.

Lucy Nunez 1 © 2008, NUNEZ

 3. How does the WebQuest use/not use the components of the Big 6 Research Model?
• In the WebQuest for Little Rock 9, the teachers uses all of the Big 6 Research Models
which are the task information, information seek strategies, location and access, use
of information, synthesis and evaluation.

4. How does the WebQuest conform/not conform to the components and role expectations
outlined by Tom March and Bernie Dodge?
• The Big 6 Model created by Tom March and Bernie Dodge was incorporated in this
WebQuest. All 6 components were used.
• The teacher uses task information in informing the students what should be done in
order to complete this WebQuest. The task for this WebQuest is to have students put
their opinions into a persuasive format, telling people what they think is the best
solution for desegregating U.S. schools.
• Step 2 of the Big 6 Model is Information Seeking Strategies. The teacher provided
students with sources to teach them about history of the past and also to help them
gather information to complete this WebQuest. Depending on the role you choose, the
teacher provided certain websites for your role.
• Step 3 being Location and Access is where can the students find these resources to
help them become experts in their topic. Under the Roles and Perspectives group, if
you scroll down, the teacher has divided 6 main areas into 3 separate groups in which
the students each decided to take on. Under each role, there are 2 websites in which
the students can click on and it will easily take them to the information the teacher
thought would be beneficial for their completion of the WebQuest.
• Step 4 is Use of Information, the teacher specifically provided the students with
information that they will need for this assignment.
• Step 5, Synthesis is how the research can best be presented. The teacher listed the
Process that students should follow in order to best present their information. In order
for the students to gather their information properly the teacher provided a “Thesis
Builder” in which they had to follow specific instructions to correctly answer the
questions listed which then also created an outline for them.
• Step 6 is Evaluation. The students were provided with an evaluation rubric to guide
their achievement.

5. How do the mechanics and formatting support a student’s use of the WebQuest? How do
they not?
• I believe the formatting of the WebQuest was done properly for the students to
understand exactly what had to be done.
• The teacher divided the different components of the WebQuest into the Introduction,
Question, Review Information, Roles, Group Solution, What’s next and the Guide.
• When the teacher created this WebQuest, she made the directions user-friendly by
having the information easily used and read by the students.

Lucy Nunez 2 © 2008, NUNEZ

 6. How does this WebQuest differentiate for varying student talents, profiles, and needs?
• When having the students choose the role they would like to be, the teacher
differentiates three different roles that can be chosen.
• If the student is good in history, and likes to research and gather information about
the past, than that student in the group can chose the role of the historian.
• The Social Scientist is another role in which the student can research the behaviors of
people from the past that took part in the desegregation process. This student will
have to research and choose the best strategies for integration.
• The last role a student can choose from is being a News Reporter. If a student in the
group has great communication skills this can be the role for him/her. As a news
reporter, s/he will inform people about the issues people were arguing about related to
school desegregation.

7. How might the content/skills targeted by the WebQuest be learned differently?

• Directions & Note-taker Strategy
• Post assignment on the Wiki
• Design the WebQuest but in a PDF, WORD, OR EXCEL format

8. How will the teacher know that the student has mastered the targeted skills? How
adequate is the assessment/evaluation?
• The teacher will know that the student has mastered the targeted skills by providing
an achievement rubric.
• The teacher will evaluate the quality of the argument, supporting details, and
oral/written expressions. The teacher will decide after reviewing the student’s work,
the teacher will decide if the student has mastered the assignment in a beginning,
middle or advanced level.

9. Is there a rubric associated with this WebQuest? If so, how functional do you think that
is, and why?
• Yes, there is a rubric associated with this WebQuest. The teacher provided the student
with an achievement rubric.
• I think the achievement rubric is very functional because it allows the students to
understand what has to be done in order to reach the mastered level of achievement.
• The rubric specifically states what has to be done in order to reach the beginning,
middle or advanced level of achievement.

10. What is the reading level of the WebQuest? HDYKT? If the reading level is not explicit,
how might you determine what it is?
• I think the reading level of the WebQuest is a 9th grade level because I copy and
pasted several parts of the WebQuest, including information found in the websites
and pasted it to a Word document in which I found the readability statistics.
• The readability statistics for the grade level ranged from 9.1-9.5.
11. Based on the analysis of Questions 1-10 above, what guidance would you give to a
teacher if s/he were to use this WebQuest?

Lucy Nunez 3 © 2008, NUNEZ

 • I honestly think that this WebQuest was well-developed for students to be able to
understand what has to be done and how to find information pertaining to their role.
• One thing that I can advise a teacher to do before showing the WebQuest to the
students is to physically explaining to the students what a WebQuest is, explaining
the process, what it looks like so they know what to expect.

Lucy Nunez 4 © 2008, NUNEZ