Gale "for Students" Online
Gale "for Students" Online
Grades: 9+ | Subject(s): All | Overall rating: 10
Our school subscribes to the Gale's Novels for Students online access. However, for the purposes of this assignment, I examined all of the Gale's "for Students" literature options for students. I remember in high school experiencing difficulty with truly understanding how to examine and analyze works of literature we read. I love reading, but it stops there. I do not want to analyze what the author was intending the reader to gain from the book. So, when attempting to write a paper analyzing the purpose or theme or anything about the book, poem, short story, etc., I struggled. This would have been an incredible resource for me in high school. I’m thankful we offer this to our students now; however, I have never fully examined exactly what it was or how it could help students until this assignment.
When you first enter the Gale’s “for Students” page through the Gale trial we have for this class, you can easily see all the options available for purchase, including: Drama, Novels, Poetry, Short Stories, Literary Newsmakers, Literary Themes, Shakespeare, and Nonfiction Classics. For each “for students” resource, two-five volumes of reference material are published each year. Users have access to full-text volumes for the past decade, or even longer for most items. In each volume, Gale selects several varying literature pieces to examine. Both classic and contemporary works are discussed as well as works with movie versions. For each entry, Gale provides an introduction to the work, information about the author, historical significance, characters, plot, themes, literary techniques, criticisms, and sources for additional research.
For the purposes of this project, I searched for “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. One of our literature classes will be studying this book this year, so I thought it would be valuable for me to offer some additional resources. “Heart of Darkness” is featured in Gale’s Novels for Students (17,997 word article), Gale’s Short Stories for Students (13,852 word article), and Gale’s Literary Themes for Students: Race and Prejudice (7,957 word article) editions.
I decided to look at the Novels version because it contained the most information. The article included the title, author, and publication date of the book and sections for an Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism, Sources, and a section for Further Study. The sections were hyperlinked so readers did not have to scroll through a lot of information to find what they needed. The information provided would definitely be helpful to both teachers preparing to read the novel with students and for students researching information related to the novel. It also would be helpful to anyone reading the book for pleasure to just have more detailed background information. For the article, I could read the entire file or print, e-mail, download, cite, listen to a reading, download an MP3 of the reading, or download a PDF copy of the article. All of these options would be helpful. Additionally, if I created an account through Gale’s Novels for Students, I could save the article for future reference, highlight portions of the article, or take notes within the article. A listing of related subjects was also given for users to find additional research. If students wanted to cite the article, both APA and MLA citations were given and users could export the citation information into EasyBib, EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, and RefWorks. If a student did not know the meaning to a word, a link to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary was included within the program. If the student needed help using Gale’s for Students products, a help feature was included for more assistance.
I assigned this resource a 10 rating because I think it would be an incredible resource for anyone conducting research on a piece of literature. I wish I had access to it when I was going through school and I’m thankful that I completed a review of this product so I can share it with my colleagues and students.
Source:
Heart of Darkness. (1997). In D. Telgen (Ed.), Novels for Students (Vol. 2, pp. 87-112). Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2591500015&v=2.1&u=acd_forstudent&it=r&p=GVRL.acdfor&sw=w&asid=2987b62d1a696f9e4d6e4a4540ea683e.
Grades: 9+ | Subject(s): All | Overall rating: 10
Our school subscribes to the Gale's Novels for Students online access. However, for the purposes of this assignment, I examined all of the Gale's "for Students" literature options for students. I remember in high school experiencing difficulty with truly understanding how to examine and analyze works of literature we read. I love reading, but it stops there. I do not want to analyze what the author was intending the reader to gain from the book. So, when attempting to write a paper analyzing the purpose or theme or anything about the book, poem, short story, etc., I struggled. This would have been an incredible resource for me in high school. I’m thankful we offer this to our students now; however, I have never fully examined exactly what it was or how it could help students until this assignment.
When you first enter the Gale’s “for Students” page through the Gale trial we have for this class, you can easily see all the options available for purchase, including: Drama, Novels, Poetry, Short Stories, Literary Newsmakers, Literary Themes, Shakespeare, and Nonfiction Classics. For each “for students” resource, two-five volumes of reference material are published each year. Users have access to full-text volumes for the past decade, or even longer for most items. In each volume, Gale selects several varying literature pieces to examine. Both classic and contemporary works are discussed as well as works with movie versions. For each entry, Gale provides an introduction to the work, information about the author, historical significance, characters, plot, themes, literary techniques, criticisms, and sources for additional research.
For the purposes of this project, I searched for “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. One of our literature classes will be studying this book this year, so I thought it would be valuable for me to offer some additional resources. “Heart of Darkness” is featured in Gale’s Novels for Students (17,997 word article), Gale’s Short Stories for Students (13,852 word article), and Gale’s Literary Themes for Students: Race and Prejudice (7,957 word article) editions.
I decided to look at the Novels version because it contained the most information. The article included the title, author, and publication date of the book and sections for an Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism, Sources, and a section for Further Study. The sections were hyperlinked so readers did not have to scroll through a lot of information to find what they needed. The information provided would definitely be helpful to both teachers preparing to read the novel with students and for students researching information related to the novel. It also would be helpful to anyone reading the book for pleasure to just have more detailed background information. For the article, I could read the entire file or print, e-mail, download, cite, listen to a reading, download an MP3 of the reading, or download a PDF copy of the article. All of these options would be helpful. Additionally, if I created an account through Gale’s Novels for Students, I could save the article for future reference, highlight portions of the article, or take notes within the article. A listing of related subjects was also given for users to find additional research. If students wanted to cite the article, both APA and MLA citations were given and users could export the citation information into EasyBib, EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, and RefWorks. If a student did not know the meaning to a word, a link to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary was included within the program. If the student needed help using Gale’s for Students products, a help feature was included for more assistance.
I assigned this resource a 10 rating because I think it would be an incredible resource for anyone conducting research on a piece of literature. I wish I had access to it when I was going through school and I’m thankful that I completed a review of this product so I can share it with my colleagues and students.
Source:
Heart of Darkness. (1997). In D. Telgen (Ed.), Novels for Students (Vol. 2, pp. 87-112). Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX2591500015&v=2.1&u=acd_forstudent&it=r&p=GVRL.acdfor&sw=w&asid=2987b62d1a696f9e4d6e4a4540ea683e.