Webbing

I have chosen to do a general overview of the Holocaust.

Since I am a teacher and use the Indiana Department of Education Standards daily I will be using them for this project. I will also try to apply the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner.

The AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner states that you should, "Display initiative and engagement by posing questions and investigating the answers beyond the collection of superficial facts." It goes on to state, "Demonstrate creativity by using multiple resources and formats." With this in mind I have used many different ways of locating information for this subject. I first made a list of questions I wanted more information on:

*When did the Holocaust start and what events led to this?
*What were the main concentration/death camps? What happened to the Jews at their arrival and during their stay?
*Where can I find novels or documentaries recording personal experiences?
*When was liberation day? What was it like?

Following the Five Elements of Information Inquiry, the second element is exploration. "Closely tied to questioning, exploration is the initial action taken to seek answers to a question." (Callison 7) In this exploration step, I first went to the web and went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. http://www.ushmm.org This site is amazing! It is full of information. It has tabs for Holocaust History, The Museum, Education, Research, and Remembrance. I pulled a lot of information from this site. Next I went to my public library's online catalog. www.barth.lib.in.us I looked for fiction and non-fiction books as well as documentaries on the subject. My last source was Ask-an-Expert. I went to www.studentoffortune.com (the link from our class syllabus). I posted a question when did the Holocaust begin?

I believe that I have received quality information from all of these sources, however I consider the USHMM site as my primary source. The information is accurate and up to date and comes from reliable experts, even survivors of the Holocaust. The books from the Library are secondary sources, as some are not up to date. I will use my answer from Ask-An-Expert last. I am not sure who answered the question and if it is a reliable source.

I feel pretty confident at this point in time. I believe I have found some great resources. I am a little apprehensive about how I will fit all of the information in. I hope to have it figured out by my next post, the step of "Wiggling".

Works Cited:
Callison, Daniel and Preddy, Leslie. The Blue Book On Information Age Inquiry, Instruction and Literacy. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2006.

AASL. Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Chicago: American Association of School Libraries, 2009.