Using Search Sites

Give your students firsthand experience "being" search engines. Tell them to use the index in Write Ahead (pages 604–614) to answer the following questions:

• What is the difference between hear and here? (Page 508—Hear means "to listen," and here means "the area nearby," the opposite of there.)
• What is an antagonist? (Page 396—"The person or force that works against the hero of the story.")
• What is a process?"

The third question is intentionally vague. The definition appears on page 126, a process essay appears on pages 180–182, a flowchart describing a process appears on pages 322 and 405, and so on. Help students realize that searching for "process" was not specific enough, but searching, for example, for "writing process" would yield much more targeted results. Even so, further refinement could yield "prewriting," "writing," revising," "editing," and "publishing."

Now lead students through the material on page 340, helping them understand that search engines are basically giant, automated indexes of the Internet. Often, students will need to refine their search terms multiple times to find the sources they really want.