Big Project Ideas

I was thinking about my blog this weekend, and realized that I had been including a lot of what to do, or ideas to use in the classroom, but not a lot of why we need to do it.  I think this is because 1) I'm a language arts teacher so writing is an essential part of my curriculum and 2) I love to get new ideas I think will help my students.  So, before I give information about the big project ideas, I wanted to remind myself (and you) why writing is so important, not just in English, but in all subjects.

I revisited the Emig article and was really struck by Emig's comment, "Writing involves the fullest possible functioning of the brain" (p. 125).  When we are teaching, none of us want to look out into the classroom and see a room full of zombies, students with that glazed over look, that moment when you feel like the teacher in Charlie Brown, remember:

Charlie Brown Teacher Video

Instead, we want to have students who are active and engaged in our content.  Sometimes we think this means students have to be up, moving around, talking, which is true, sometimes.  But, according to Emig, writing actually engages the brain, both hemispheres.  We also know that ideas and concepts need to be reinforced if they are to be understood and remembered.  Writing is the perfect tool for this, as Emig points out, "writing, through its inherent re-inforcing cycle involving hand, eye, and brain marks a uniquely powerful multi-representational mode for learning" (124-125).

Okay, on to the big project ideas I promised.  These are examples of what the authors call public writing, which is "polished" writing that has been through the writing process.  The authors propose these ideas can replace the old, worn out term paper.

1.  Multigenre Project - this project entails students creating "a collection of five, eight, or even twelve different shorter pieces centered around a single important topic" (p. 205).  Some of the process is the same as the traditional research paper, students will have to choose a topic, then collect information about the topic, but the writing is done through a variety of products that will require students to put the information into their own words.  I scanned the list of project offered because I thought they were great ideas, sorry for the poor scanning quality:

2.  I-Search Paper - this is closest to the traditional research paper.  Students choose a topic, research, and then write a paper.  There is a lot to this process, so for those of you who would like to know more, I found a website that gives a lot of detail:

I-Search resource

One idea I loved in this section, was a way to help students organize the information they find while doing research.  After finding their information, students come up with four major questions about the topic.  "They write one question at the top of each sheet of paper... each kid gets a set of colored pencils or four different-color highlighters, color codes the questions, and then returns to the text, color coding what he's underlined, matching each piece of information with the color of the major question it best answer" (242).  I think this would really help students break down information and organize their writing.  The teacher uses this as part of their evaluation, checking steps along the way, which can help save us from grading everything at the end.

There are two other big project ideas, but since this blog is turning out to be really long, think I'll save them for next time!