Name: _____________________
Using Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) / Gale – Kids InfoBits
Creating a Web: The US Presidents
Today, you will choose a US president and create a web to illustrate important
events in his life.
A web is a way to write your ideas down and organize how they go together. This
will help you when you have to write a report for class. All of your ideas will be
interconnected just like a spider web. That is why we call it a web!
Go to TEL: The Tennessee Electronic Library (http://tntel.tnsos.org)
Go to Kids InfoBits
School Grades
Elementary School Resources
Kids InfoBits
History and Social Studies
US Presidents
Choose a president from the list. (Note that they are arranged in alphabetical
order and not in the order that they served).
Choose one of the encyclopedia articles under the Reference tab with a
green circle next to it:
"John Adams." Kids InfoBits. Thomson Gale, 2005.
Biography
Read the article
Now we will make our web!
Begin by writing your main topic (President’s name) in the circle in the middle of
your page.
John Adams
The next step is to identify main ideas about the president that you chose in the big
circle. This will make your assignment come to life. You can see that there are four
major paragraphs to write about the president you chose--his early years and
family, his education and occupation, his presidency, and some interesting facts
about him. This is a simple web.
Education and
Occupation
Early Life and
Family
John Adams
Interesting Facts
Presidency
To develop a more complex web, you could add a few ideas for each circled
phrase connected to that main idea. See the example below:
Education and
Occupation
Early Life and
Family
1) Born October 30, 1735 in Braintree (now
Quincy), Massachusetts
2) Married Abigail Smith and had 5 kids
(Abigail, John Quincy, Susanna,
Charles, and Thomas)
1) Graduate of Harvard College
John Adams
Presidency
1) Second President of the United States (1797 to 1801), and
Thomas Jefferson was his vice president
2) Supported neutrality in a war between Britain and France,
which was a very unpopular position
2) Teacher and Lawyer
Interesting Facts
1) Signer of the Declaration of
Independence
2) Adams and Jefferson died on
the same day (July 4, 1826)
CBC, APSU, Summer 2010, For Jr Govs Camp, Based on “Creating a Web,” Gale Kid’s InfoBits Teacher Toolbox