A scavenger hunt assignment done online can be fun and also help students see how the material they are engaging with is part of a larger discourse online.
For this assignment, students are to collect consumer goods that are related to the text being read in class, in this case, Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Pinterest is a social media website that visualizes links, and can be a great tool for a scavenger hunt assignment. The instructor can create an account for all of the students to log into, or can easily add his students’ individual accounts to the board via these instructions. It may be worthwhile to survey the students to see whether they are already using Pinterest or not.
Students would then surf the web and pin their findings to the board. They can also comment about the items they are pinning, and if they are using individual accounts it would be easy for them to comment on each other’s pins.
The example board shows how easy it is for students to see the number of consumer goods, and even other books that are inspired by Moby Dick. It would be important to let students know not to pin different editions of the original book!
Before assigning this, you should make sure the material you are working on has a lot of products related to it online. Sites like Etsy typically have a lot of literary-minded products available if you also teach Literature.
This scavenger hunt lets students realize how their studies are relevant in an enjoyable way — reading classic literature keeps them in the cultural loop and lets them understand the inspiration behind some pop culture objects.
