Introduction

Join the scrapbooking craze, but without scissors, paper and glue! This Filamentality assignment will help you to familiarize yourself with Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' and Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter' by enabling you to cull and coalesce snippets of pertinent and interesting information from prechewed websites.

You are responsible for the information contained within these website links, and are responsible for creating a resource scrapbook page of information. This page may be posted as a webpage, or created in Word or through PageMaker. It may look like a scrapbook or a newspaper layout. You should have one-to-two pages of scrapbooked information to share.

Keep the following question in mind as you search for good information to include in your scrapbook: (see below)

Keep this question in mind as you work:

From the information that you have gathered thusfar about 'The Crucible' and 'The Scarlet Letter', what do Arthur Miller and Nathaniel Hawthorne's arguments suggest about their positions on the sociopolitical (social and political) issues of their respective eras?

Instructions

1. Explore the Internet sites linked below. You're looking for facts, quotes, examples, images, sound clips, videos, and animations that you think are important aspects of the topic.

2. When you find something you like, check its Web page for a copyright notice. Often, students are encouraged to copy things that will only be used in the classroom. Sometimes people don't want their work copied at all. A good practice is looking for an e-mail link on the page and then using it to ask permission.

3. Copy any text you want by dragging across the words, then using the Edit - Copy command on the menubar. Paste what you highlighted into a basic text editor, word processor, desktop publishing program or multimedia program.

4. Save images you like by downloading them. Paste the images you've downloaded into a multimedia, paint or desktop publishing program (like HyperStudio, Clarisworks, or PageMaker) or use one of the graphics viewers listed as Tools on this page to display your collection of images.

5. Be prepared to cut anything that copyright owners tell you they don't want you to have.

6. Once you have collected your information, go over it carefully so that you can give clear and thoughtful reasons why you found the things you collected especially important.
   

The Internet Resources

Bio info on Miller

• Miller's reasons for writing The Crucible - Why did Arthur Miller write 'The Crucible?' Some answers here....

Bio info on Hawthorne

• A website with lots of Hawthorne references - This site isn't terribly complex, but it does provide you with a decent base of information about Hawthorne's life and works.

Historical references

• Puritanism and Predestination - Understand the concepts of Puritanism and Predestination in for contextual understanding of The Crucible....

• The Red Scare - What does The Red Scare have to do with The Crucible? Read on....

• The basics about the Salem Witch Trials - Trick or Treat? The Witch Trials and The Crucible....

• Danvers, Massachusetts - Home of the Witch Trials--a map

• Someone's vision of historical inaccuracies in The Crucible - Scroll down this page to find a sample of historical inaccuracies in The Crucible....

Literary analysis of The Scarlet Letter

• Hawthorne analyzed in The Atlantic Monthly - The Atlantic Monthly presents a perspective on Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter....

Tools

References

Grabbing Web Images

Follow a friendly step-by-step tutorial on how to grab images from the Web.

Software

download JPEGView (Macintosh)

Software for showing images

download Lview Pro (Windows)

Software for showing images

HyperStudio

Multimedia authorware used at many schools. Check out the Website for support, ideas, and the Netscape Plug-In

Shareware.com

Thousands of software programs you may want to download and use.

HTML Tutorial

Create your own Web page to show what you've learned.