Mr. Stewart's Theatre Webquest

INTRODUCTION: A webquest is an activity or project using the Internet as a primary source of information. As you participate in this project, you will use the Internet to gather information about the history of theater.

TASK (overview): You will search for information about a specific era in theater history, using the Internet, and design a PowerPoint presentation to educate the rest of the class about your research. You will then present the PowerPoint presentation to the class.

PROCESS:

1. You will select a period of time in theater history to research, after first reviewing the entire history of theater.

2.     You will use the Internet to find information related to the history of theater during your time period. The web addresses (URL’s) of resources are included in this handout.

3. After gathering information, you will put together a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint. Your presentation will show the important aspects of theater during your selected era. You will save your presentation electronically to your account (if you can access it.)

4. All PowerPoint presentations will include the following:

a. Between 5 and 8 slides
b. Text on at least 80% of the slides
c. Graphics or pictures on at least half the slides
d. Each person’s first and last names
e. A bibliography with the URL’s of sites used

        Some Helpful hints –

·        Stay on task.
·        Take good notes.
·        Record each URL used and other information for your bibliography as you go along.
·        Use the Citation Machine for assistance in citing your sources if you need help.

Here are some questions that you might want to answer in your presentation. You should answer at least four (4) of them.
(questions courtesy of Saskatchewan Learning website http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/curr_content/drama30/index.html)

a. How does the time period influence the qualities of the drama produced?
b. How does the drama produced influence the time period?
c. Where was theatre produced?
e. Who were the major playwrights, and what kind of plays did they make?
f. What technical theater capabilities existed?
g. What was the acting style like?
h. What where the characteristics of a good actor?
i. What dates does the period include?
j. Who went to see the theatre and why?
k. Who were the important personalities associated with the theatre? Why?
l. What factors influenced the success of the theatre?
m. What would an audience member see at a typical production?

Evaluation:

Your presentation will be worth a total of 200 points. Your project will be graded by the following requirements.

a. contains factual information about the subject
b. is interesting to the class
c. shows creativity
d. is neat, grammatically correct and has all words spelled correctly

Valuable resources:

http://go.grolier.com/ - Go to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia and search for "theater, history of the" – probably a good place to start
http://tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5291/history.html - another good place to start
http://www.tctwebstage.com/oftheatre.htm - although dedicated to a particular theater, there is some good general information here about various eras of theater history
http://www.athensacademy.org/instruct/resources/theater_history.htm - sites for specific time periods
http://www.videoccasions-nw.com/history/jack.html - sites with information about individual eras
http://www.artslynx.org/theatre/history.htm - another with sites for specific eras
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/ - Shakespearean theater
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/ - Shakespearean theater
http://litera1no4.tripod.com/dramahistory.html - General history of drama, all eras
http://www.theatredatabase.com/medieval/medieval_theatre_001.html - Medieval (Middle Ages) theater
http://www.win.net/~kudzu/history.html  - General theater history information

Information  you need to know and remember:

1. This project is worth 200 points.
2. Nothing will be printed – you should take notes and work from your notes.
3. You lose points if you are off task.
4. You lose points if you are surfing the internet instead of working on the webquest.
5. You lose points if you are checking email.
6. You lose points if you are talking.
7. You lose points if you print anything.

Theatre History Initiative Time Period Updates

For year two and beyond