The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Photograph by Skye Dunlap Michael Jeung, 16, discusses his plans for his English class's Web page. He's working on the project with Helen Cherkasova, 16, Prasanth Padmanabhan, 16, and teacher Larry Vosovic. The page gives students 24-hour access to class material and the ability to discuss literature with other students online. Students exchange ideas about books on Web page By Michelle Ku While most students are relaxing during the holiday break, four students from Homestead are whiling away their vacation hours working on a Web page for their contemporary literature class. The Web pages will provide links and other resources for the two books, Catch-22 and Sophie's World, the class will be reading the rest of the academic year. "Catch-22 is about purpose," says Michael Jeung, a 16-year-old junior. "Working on this Web page has given me a purpose for this vacation." Under the direction of English teacher Larry Vosovic, Jeung and three classmates, senior James Bennett and juniors Helen Cherkasova and Prasanth Padmanabhan, have been working on the pages since early December to create an innovative and interactive way for students in Vosovic's classes to better understand the material. While the pages are geared to assist students as they read the two books in conjunction with Vosovic's lectures, Vosovic and the four Web masters agree that they have a greater goal in mind--to contribute to the world discussion on the books. "We want everybody in the world to have access to it," Vosovic says. Vosovic got the idea to create a Web page to assist his students in the reading of literature last spring when he was surfing the Web and discovered pages of links on Sophie's World. "I realized that the whole world was talking about the book Sophie's World, but that no one in the United States had heard of it," Vosovic says. "I realized that the kids were having difficulty getting through the book and if they had been able to read other people's comments and interpretations, it would have given them an insight into their own reading." Having already taught two semesters of Sophie's World last year, and teaching five sections of the book this year, Vosovic wanted to get the students excited about the book on a different level. "One of the negative things that I'm hesitant to say is that the reading level of students in general is down, but they do read off the Internet," he says. "So what I was trying to do is give them another avenue to read. I'm tapping into what students are already doing." To create the Web page, Vosovic turned to students in his classes. He first approached Padmanabhan, who suggested that Cherkasova would be a good addition to the project team. One thing led to another and then Vosovic had a team of four students with the expertise and willingness to create the Web pages. All of the students, with the exception of Bennett, have extensive HTML experience. During their freshman year, Cherkasova, Jeung and Padmanabhan took Angela Lih Chang's Internet class at Homestead. Cherkasova, Jeung and Padmanabhan have prior experience as Web masters. Cherkasova, 16, is in charge of the Web pages for Homestead's speech and debate and Amnesty International clubs. Jeung is involved with a real-time strategy gaming site. Padmanabhan, 16, Web masters a page for the youth group of TAMIL Manram. Bennett, 18, brings graphics and design experience to the team. He's experienced with Adobe Photoshop and is in charge of graphics for The Epitaph, Homestead's school newspaper. Besides providing links to other sites with Catch-22 and Sophie's World information, the class study guides, with answers, will be posted. The site also includes a bulletin board and a 24-hour chat room. Although up for less than two weeks while school was in session, the board already contains several messages--including some in German. A challenge that Vosovic has given his class is extra credit for the student who is able to get Josef Heller, the author of Catch-22, inside the chat room. Cherkasova doubts anyone can get Heller into the chat room, but said they might try writing him and getting him to the page. In addition to contributing to the Internet discussion on literature, Vosovic also wanted to give students 24-hour access to material. "Vos originally wanted students to be able to talk outside of class," Cherkasova says. "They can post a message on the bulletin board at 2 a.m. if they have questions about the book." When it comes to technology and Web pages on the Internet, access is always an important factor. Even if the material is available on a page, it's not helpful if a student cannot access it. Vosovic and the others are quick to point out that access shouldn't be an issue. "One thing I took into consideration when I took this up was Web access. Sixty percent of the population has some form of Internet access," Padmanabhan says. "If students want to get to the Web page, they can find a way either through the computer lab or a friend's house." The contemporary literature Web site is currently located at members.tripod.com/~elvoz, but it will be moved onto the Homestead server after the new year. A redirection page will be up at the old Tripod site. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 30, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.