a project for Adverbial Clauses
If you’re unfamiliar with WebQuests, read this introduction first.
For this project, students search the web for activism opportunities. They could look for local events they can join like a charity walk or a cell phone drive. Or perhaps they can look for an online campaign working toward a cause they’re already interested in (perhaps they can donate €10 to help support an endangered species, for instance). Before they begin, you may want to find a few relevant opportunities yourself to help with their brainstorming, or at least to provide options for those who are unsure which avenues to pursue.
To be clear, students are not required to actually partake in these opportunities in order to complete the project (nor should you necessarily recommend that they join any particular one, especially if your students are minors). Hopefully, this project will increase the awareness of various needs and opportunities, and it’s up to your students whether they want to do anything about them in their own time.
Gathering Details
Once students have chosen an event or campaign, they need to find more information about it:
Why was it created (what triggered it)?
Who (which person or organization) organizes it?
What is the goal? Why should anyone get involved?
How long does/will it last?
Where can people engage with it (which location, or which website/app)?
What are similar/related events?
What difficulties does it face?
Hopefully, most or all of this information will be found on the official website, but students may need to browse forums or send emails (with your supervision and perhaps your account, if your students are minors) for any information they can’t find otherwise. Students should then express the answers to these questions as either ADVERBIAL CLAUSES or prepositional phrases. Check out the video below to see the difference.
Here are some sample answers:
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- It was created because the Amazon rainforest is slowly being destroyed.
- It it organized by the World Health Organization.
- Volunteers gather to bring food to the homeless communities in their city.
- It lasts until all the debris is cleared.
- You can learn more at www.savethepenguins.com.
- It involves a bake sale just like last year’s fundraiser for the chorus trip.
- The march may be cancelled if there’s a blizzard this weekend.
Notice that each italicized section begins with a subordinating conjunction or a preposition. You may want to take advantage of our Subordinating Conjunctions printout, which Insiders can find with our Modifier Clauses series.
Final Product
Students should write a short paper with the description of the event/campaign, as well as the details they’ve gathered. Depending on your students’ level you may also choose for them to write a persuasive paragraph encouraging their classmates to get involved. If your students like visual activities, you can have them create a poster as well.
Students should share their findings with the rest of the class. They should also explain why they chose that particular event/campaign. At your discretion, they could also try to get their classmates interested in that or similar opportunities.
Check out Insights’s Modifier Clauses Series to view our videos on Adverbial Clauses and related topics. In these videos, we share innovative teaching methods to make it easier for students to understand and remember grammar points.
Go beyond the videos with printouts, slideshows, bonus notes, and much more by joining with Insider Access or by downloading a Grammar Guidebook. Visit our About Insider Access page to learn more!
