The Case for Web Quests

I’ve been a fan of web quests, or Internet scavenger hunts, ever since using one as a scaffold to help prepare my eighth graders for their upcoming unit on Greek mythology. Prior to this week’s readings, I believed web quests were a great tool for building students’ schema or awareness of necessary content (cultural practices and beliefs, time frame, language, etc.) before diving into a novel or text. This still holds true, but web quests offer so much more than just providing sound background information.

According to Castek et al (2009), reading digital texts and searching the web for content (a la web quests for example) provide struggling readers with additional supports that “offline” texts can’t provide. Castek claims that some struggling readers actually perform much better when conducting reading tasks online. When conducting online research, these students “demonstrate that shorter units of text, characteristic of online reading, may encourage more active attempts at reading and comprehending, avoiding tendencies to shut down when confronted with lengthy, continuous text segments such as those typically found in a chapter or text book” (p. 16). Castek also emphasizes the importance of having students become fluent in digital research, as they live and function in the digital age. Research on reading comprehension shows that “reading on the Internet requires additional comprehension skills beyond those required to read traditional print text” (2009, p. 1)

While using a web quest, I like the idea of asking students to synthesize information they’ve read from multiple sources. The ability to synthesize is one of the highest levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy, and Castek’s article supports this, as struggling readers are often better at finding information online than in a physical text. They read the search engine results rather than clicking on the article and scanning for clues, so they find the right info more quickly. Also digital texts are shorter that traditional “offline” content which can overwhelm a struggling reader. (2009, p. 6)

The Coiro article (2011) also supports the concept of web quests to help struggling readers. The section about “think-alouds” resonated with me as an activity to introduce web quests, and ultimately, best practices to conduct research online. Coiro (2011) calls this approach “cognitive apprenticeship, in which teachers use think-aloud models to support readers by engaging them in authentic problem-solving activities while calling attention to often overlooked or hidden comprehension strategies that are useful in particular reading situations” (p. 108). Looking back on the web search I used with my 8^th graders, the experience would have been greatly enhanced had I modeled, or conducted a “think-aloud” on how to best approach a web quest. 

Coiro (2011) writes students are motivated by “authentic and intentional reading purposes that are situated in the context of interesting texts” (p. 109), and I love the idea of giving students agency in how they want to conduct their web quest. For example, sticking with the goal of providing scaffolding for a unit on Greek mythology, web quest choices could include Greek history, culture, food, famous battles/wars, religion, art, etc. Students would ultimately accomplish the shared goal of learning best practices for conducting online research as well as synthesizing information, but their motivation level would be increased as they would having the opportunity to choose a topic that interests them. Students would share their findings with the class, which would result what Coiro (2011) indicates as a “higher level of metacognitive awareness” (p. 108).

Perseus preparing for his (web) quest.
By Walter Crane (1845-1915) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons