The War of the Worlds Research Project Materials

Promote student choice and facilitate the process of researching relevant topics from beginning to end with this low-prep activity to conclude a unit on The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Students will choose from thirty research topics—addressing ideas such as real-life UFO sightings (the 1947 Roswell incident, the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident, the 2006 O’Hare International Airport incident, etc.), UFO programs and organizations (Project Blue Book, Mutual UFO Network, SETI Institute, etc.), and famous figures in ufology (J. Allen Hynek, John Mack, George Adamski, etc.)—and navigate academically appropriate sources with the goal of teaching their peers about their topics. A detailed scoring rubric is provided. Materials are delivered in Word Document and PDF formats.

Ultimately, students will perform the following tasks:

• Articulate connections between a research topic and the assigned novel
• Conduct research using available resources
• Collect and classify reliable sources
• Develop successful methods of recording information
• Evaluate the credibility of nonfiction texts, taking into consideration readability, date, relevance, expertise, and bias
• Apply conventions of MLA formatting
• Correctly site resources to avoid plagiarism
• Organize information in a cohesive manner, using a note-taking system that includes summary, paraphrasing, and quoted material
• Analyze, synthesize, and integrate information, generating a thoughtfully comprehensive report, free of generalities and redundancies
• Present information in a formal, coherent manner