Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
WHAT THE HECK DO I DO WITH THEM AFTER
THE APHG EXAM?
Adapted from: World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and Educational Technology, University
of Alabama, 1991.
Title of Presentation:
What The Heck Do I Do With Them AFTER the APHG Exam?
Geography Through Literature via Project-Based Learning.
Literature and geography can actually be a great combination. While a literary work stimulates
the reader’s imagination, it also presents information that can be used to illustrate basic, and not
so basic, geography concepts. All year we have taught geography using the five themes. The five
themes of geography are readily apparent in virtually every literary work.
How do the five themes of geography show up in a literary work?
LOCATION – The where of geography. Location can be an absolute location, as in latitude and
longitude, or it can be a relative location which describes where something is in reference to some
other more familiar place. Every literary work deals with location. For example:
a.
b.
c.
d.
What is the setting for the book?
Is this a place that has an absolute location?
Where does the story take place?
What does the reader need to know about the where in order to understand the story
of setting?
e. Where is the setting in relation to other places or locations?
PLACE – The physical or human characteristics of a location that makes this place different or
special. What makes the location of this story unique and different from other places? Students
might look for evidence described about both the material and non-material culture of the place.
They might also ask questions about sense of place.
a. Is this place urban or rural?
b. What type of weather is described in the book? How does this relate to the climate of
the place?
c. What are the human characteristics of this place (culture, language, ethnicity, or
religion)?
d. What does the book say about the built environment (evidence of sequent occupance,
etc.)?
e. What are the physical characteristics of this place (mountains, jungles, rivers, plains,
or deserts)?
f. When did the story take place? Is it an historical setting? How does the time
influence what this location is like?
g. What is the “sense of place” in this work of literature?
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.
Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS – The relationship between humans and their
environment. How do the characters in the story affect or interact with their environment and
how does that environment influence their behavior?
a. What are the characters doing to modify their environment?
b. How does the environment influence the way in which the characters live and
conduct their daily lives?
c. What are the people’s lives and lifestyles like regarding the environment?
d. In what ways do the people in the story interact with one another?
e. In what types of activities are the people engaged (farming, manufacturing,
mining, business, hunting for food, big game hunting)?
f. How does the availability of food, water and shelter affect people’s actions?
MOVEMENT – The flow of people, goods, services and ideas from one place to another. The
movement of the physical world, the wind, water, storms, sand and clouds, could also be
important.
a. In what types of movement are the characters involved (migration, travel, intervening
opportunities, etc.)?
b. Are there any specific types of migration taking place (chain, step, return, internal,
external, forced, seasonal etc.)?
c. What goods are being exchanged and traded?
d. From where are the products in the story coming? Where are they going?
e. Does the story deal with the spread of an idea? How does it affect the characters in
the story?
f. What movements of nature are there in the story (earthquakes, storms, floods,
droughts, lava flows, locust infestations)?
g. What causes the movements that are taking place (economics, environmental
disasters, crop failure/famine, political situations, war, push/pull factors, etc.)?
REGIONS – Areas that share one or more common characteristics.
a. What physical regions are described in the story (climate, vegetation, mountains,
plains)?
b. What cultural regions are present in the story (ethnic groups, urban neighborhoods,
political areas, economic settings, etc.)?
c. What part do these regions play in the story?
REQUIREMENTS
Book Selection and Reading
Each student will choose a book in cooperation with the teacher. Books may be obtained from
the school, city or county libraries. The student may purchase the assigned book from local
bookstores or from an online service such as amazon.com. Most of these books can be purchased
for under $15. Purchasing a copy enables the student to make notes in the book and frees the
student from due dates at the library.
Once a book has been selected and obtained, the student should read the book and focus on the 5
themes of geography. It is suggested that the student make notes as they read (page numbers,
ideas, etc.). This approach makes it easier for the student to come back and write the final
product.
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.
Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
Writing the Paper
The student’s final product will be to write an overview of the book, which incorporates
the five themes of geography and is not less than 3 and not more than 5 typewritten
pages. This paper should:
- include a title page (format does not matter)
- be double-spaced
- 12 point or smaller print
- use 1-inch margins top, bottom, left, and right
- begin with a short paragraph that introduces the book
- be written in sections (each of the themes)
- be written in such a way that each new geographic theme is introduced in the
first sentence of the new paragraph
- include a conclusion paragraph AFTER writing three pages of geographic text
- be written using proper mechanics (grammar, spelling, syntax, etc.).
Other instructions for this assignment:
- Do not use contractions (hasn’t, didn’t, there’s, etc.) in the paper.
- Sketch a map, which traces the movement of the principal characters in the
book. This map should be hand drawn.
- Do not put section headings in the text of the paper above each new topic.
- Please do not put pages in individual plastic covers.
- Include any other information or visuals, which would be helpful.
GRADING – 200 points possible
- Content
- Mechanics/Grammar
- Map
100
75
25
PLAGIARISM – Defined by Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as:
“To steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own use without
crediting the source: to commit literary theft: present as new and original
an idea or product derived from an existing source.”
What does this mean to YOU? It means an honors student should read one’s book and
report on it using one’s own words and ideas. Please do not copy ideas, phrases, cut and
paste, etc. from your literary selection, the internet, Cliff Notes or other sources. Your
paper should look like a high school student wrote it.
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.
Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
Name________________________
LITERATURE PROJECT RUBRIC/GRADE SHEET
_____ include a title page
_____be double-spaced
_____use 1-inch margins top, bottom, left, and right
_____use 12 point print or smaller
_____not less than 3 and one-half and not more than 5 and one-half typewritten pages
_____begin with a short paragraph that introduces the book
_____be written in sections (each of the themes)
_____be written in such a way that each new geographic theme is introduced in
the first sentence of the new paragraph
_____include a conclusion paragraph AFTER writing three pages of geographic
text
_____be written using proper mechanics (grammar, spelling, etc.).
_____do not use contractions (hasn’t, didn’t, there’s, etc.) in the paper.
_____do not put section headings in the text of the paper above each new topic.
_____do not put pages in individual plastic covers.
_____include any other information or visuals, which would be helpful.
_____evidence of plagiarism:
CONTENT – 5 Themes of Geography related to the book, accuracy of written
content
________ 100 points
MECHANICS AND GRAMMAR – accuracy of grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.
________ 50 points
INSTRUCTIONS FOLLOWED – followed the guidelines in the criteria sheets
________ 25 points
MAP – hand-sketched, accurately depicts movement in the book, neatness
________ 25 points
TOTAL ___________/ 200 points
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.
Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
WRITER’S CHECKLIST
1. Look at the ideas in your response.
_____Have you focused on the one main idea?
_____Have you used enough details to explain yourself?
_____Have you put your thoughts in order?
_____Can others understand what you are saying?
2. Think about what you want others to know and feel after reading your paper.
_____Will others understand how you think or feel about an idea?
_____Will others feel angry, sad, happy, surprised, or some other way about your
response? (Hint: Make your reader feel like you do about your paper.)
_____Do you have sentences of different lengths? (Hint: Be sure you have variety in your
sentence lengths.)
_____Are you sentences alike? (Hint: Use different kinds of sentences.)
3. Look at the words you have used.
_____Have you described things, places, and people the way they are? ( Hint: Use
enough details.)
_____Are you the same person all the way through your paper? (Hint: Check your verbs
and pronouns.)
_____Have you used the right words in the right places?
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.
Paul T. Gray, Jr.
Russellville High School – Russellville, Arkansas
paul.gray@rsdmail.k12.ar.us
SUGGESTED READINGS FOR GEOGRAPHY THROUGH LITERATURE
Author
Title
Achebe, C.
Buck, P.
Cervantes, M.
Conrad, J.
Crane, S.
Crichton, M.
Dickens, C.
Dinesen, I.
Faulkner, W.
Flaubert, G.
Forster, E.M.
Golding, W.
Heller, J.
Hemingway, E.
Things Fall Apart
The Good Earth
Don Quixote
Lord Jim
The Red Badge of Courage
Eaters of the Dead
Oliver Twist
Out of Africa
As I Lay Dying
Madame Bovary
A Passage to India
Lord of the Flies
Catch 22
A Farwell to Arms
The Old Man and the Sea
The Sun Also Rises
Dune
Brave New World
The Odyssey
On the Road
Main Street
The Fixer
1984
Doctor Zhivago
All Quiet on the Western Front
On the Beach
The Grapes of Wrath
Travels With Charlie
Innocents Abroad
Life on the Mississippi
Pudd’n Head Wilson
The Hobbit
Rabbit Run
Candide
All the King’s Men
Look Homeward, Angel
Herbert, F.
Huxley, A.
Homer
Kerouac, J.
Lewis, S.
Malamud, B.
Orwell, G.
Pasternak, B.
Remarque, E.
Shute, N.
Steinbeck, J.
Twain, M.
Tolkien, J.R.R.
Updike, J.
Voltaire
Warren, R.P.
Wolfe, T.
For other appropriate additions to the above list see:
Outstanding Books for College-Bound Students
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/outstandingbooks/outstandingbooks.htm
Estelle, Doug, et al. Reading Lists for College-Bound Students, 2nd edition. New York: Prentice
Hall, 1993.
Adapted from: The World Geography Honors - Development Course, Center for Communication and
Educational Technology, University of Alabama, 1991.