Look up biographical information on the Internet about the author of the book that you selected for your recreational reading book report. If you can't find anything about the author, look for information about the book . If you can't find anything about the author, or the book, look for information about the subject. When you find some information, carefully screen the web pages to see if it is helpful and relevant. The idea is to find a little background about your author. This should help give you some insight into the book itself.
When you find a good page, record the URL (which means Universal Resource Locator) which is the Internet address which is in the Location box at the top of the page, for example "http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/check.first.a.html" and print out a few pages from the material .
Go to the English Lab and sign-in as usual. Find a place at one of the Macintosh computers.
Launch Netscape. It is on the brown Applications card on the screen. You may have to click on the top brown tab and tap on the red arrows to find the program which should be in alphabetical order.
The first file that comes up should be our local homepage. Tap on the Glendale College logo. On the page that comes up, tap on the line that says "Search the Internet with Alta Vista". When the Alta Vista page comes up, tap in the long rectangular box. Type the name of your author in the box. You'll get better results if you put the name between quote marks, i.e. "Mark Twain".
It may take a little time while the program searches the Internet for the information. It will let you know if it finds any information. If you were successful, scroll down the page and look at the various "hits" that the program has found. Tap on any of the underlined links to the hits. The program will bring you to that Internet site. Scan the material carefully to see if the information is relevant to your book. If so, write down the URL address (it should be in the "Location" box above the buttons), and press the "Print" button and have the computer print the first few pages of the Internet site.
Either write the URL address on the print-out, or when you do the print page set-up, set it to print the location of the page on the top of the page. Put your name on the paper and turn it in to Mr.Doyle.
See what some of my other students have found. (You can't use these.)
Dennis Doyle ddoyle@glendale.cc.ca.us