So the semester is winding down and final projects are piling up like a Porta-Potty reserve. The next project sliding down off that heap is a teaching unit incorporating media and technology. I am planning to make it practical and hope to use it during my student teaching, so I have decided on building it around the texts my cooperating teacher gave me. One of the classes I will teach will be 10th graders with a Nature/Science focus. I am excited about that because, Mmmmm, you put English and Nature together and you get Art and adventure. Well, I’ve chosen to use Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild . Have any of you read it? If you have I could use your help. As you may or may not know, it is the story of Kris McCandless, a college graduate who abandoned all the comforts of his well-to-do family and toured the American West ending up in Alaska on the Stampede Trail in Denali National Park. That is where he died. (Sidenote: in the book it almost seems he turns to God at the end, which is queer considering he is a devout atheist throughout the previous chapters of the book.)

Now, this unit is more of a focus on the the themes of wildness and nature in literature, so I am also planning on using the documentary on Shackleton’s expedition and even incorporating Hemingway’s “Big, Two-Hearted River.” What I would like is to add is some kind of supplementary technology or media based projects to inculde into this unit. For example, a guided web-site exploration on any of the above topics (for this I am lacking any real interesting sites from which to start). I have found some helpful site such as this and this and this, but not much else for my students to explore.

So, any ideas? Did I mention this is due on Saturday?