The cover of a book may give the readers an idea about what the book deals with. Usually, we do not judge a book by its cover, but in this case it is a good activity for students to write or predict what the book deals with. It is very difficult to predict whether this book will be our favorite book, or whether we would enjoy this book thoroughly. I think it is interesting to use the title of the book and the picture on the cover to create an activity.
We are going to create a guided writing activity using a Journal, and you can select another activity to carry it out. We are going to design the activity so that our students write a story based on the cover of the book—by taking into account the title and the pictures on its cover. We enter the course and choose the Weekly outline section in which we want to add the activity. Let's Moodle it!
Before creating the activity in Moodle, we have to choose the cover of the book that we will be working on. In this case, we are going to select a book written by Thomas Kinkade, who is a painter as well. The name of the book is Beyond the Garden Gate. These are the steps to follow:
- Click on Add an activity and select Journal.
- Complete the Journal name and Journal question.
- In the Journal question, we are linking the official website of Thomas Kinkade's timeline, http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servlet/com.asucon.ebiz.biography.web.tk.BiographyServlet as shown in the following screenshot:
- You are going to design the table as shown in the previous screenshot. In Data about the book, you will be linking the following URL, http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1565075404/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link. Students will be able to preview the book using this website.
- Make sure that you select New window in Target.
- Click OK.
- Then click on Save and display.
After linking the websites, students can surf these pages and find interesting data about the artist. They can also see his works from an artistic point of view. The link to the official website is very important, as the information is accurate and precise. Now the activity is ready for your students to write! The next screenshot represents the way in which the students will see the activity:
