Quoted below are two standing extra-credit assignments for my English 112 sections that involve searching the Web for course relevant materials and applying them to course concepts.

1.  Doing Internet/Web (CD) Research:

After you've seen some of the lessons in Literature Online, join the fun by finding stuff for any other of the works that might be assigned for this course. So far, the VCCS has been supporting my work with grants, but if those funds dry up or if I want to move faster than one or two lessons per semester, I could use a hand.

Basically, you type the name of a work or an author into a block after you click "Net
Search" on the computer screen of your (or the college's) Internet browser and then click
on the webpage titles that are listed for you on screen. The trickiest part is reminding
yourself to keep track of the Web address where things come from that you download.

No experience is necessary; I can show you what to do in about an hour in the PRC
library and I will supply diskettes for your downloading. To earn points, you need to
suggest possible uses of the materials you find, including possible questions, notes,
answers, captions, credit lines, and commentary.

[So far students who have done this exercise have found photos and a biography of Matthew Arnold, online copies of two poems assigned for the course, and have suggested one quiz question and answer.]

2.  Contributing to a Website on a Specific Literary Work or Movie

The websites in the Literature Online site that serve as study guides usually contain the pieces listed below. At the usual per-printed-page point rate, you might easily substitute for an essay by completing such a study guide on line.

• Critiques, explanations, study questions for a work: Most sites on the Web tend to be collections of favorite poems without much reflection, so plan to include your own "A" essays; but you should see if you can turn up literary criticism by teachers or students. Yahoo's selected hits or HotBot's boolean search options may help.  
• Photos to illuminate a poem, along with some explanation: For instance, to illustrate the setting of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," a photo of the Dover beach or cliffs or even Dover Castle might accompany some scene setting. (Find a photo using your favorite search engine or just by clicking on the "Search" icon in your web browser.) Since it's only 22 miles from Dover, England, to Calais, France, it's possible to see the French lights on the horizon, if the sea is calm and atmospherics are right. For sonnet 116, I also tried to use photos to translate or illuminate metaphors or individual words in the text, such as the North Star for the lines "It [love] is the star to ev'ry wandering bark/ Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken."  The latter line led to an illustrated website on astrolabes, used by sailors to navigate up until the 1700s.
• Advanced: I haven't yet asked a question and offered hot-linked answer choices so that when users click on an answer they are sent to further considerations (to rethink a short-sighted answer or for a right answer some praise and a more advanced consideration). If the Litonline team gets more funding, I hope we can all build in many such questions; there are only a few at the moment, e.g. in the drama introduction.
• Suggest writing topics and perhaps projects that might involve more than one student, especially from more than one campus. Our current modules often end with writing assignments--and the site for The Glass Menagerie steps students through developing four possible essays about that play. Usually, the writing suggestions are on a separate page.  If possible, link to the work [poem, play, movie, short story, even novel] online (use your favorite search engine to find it).

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