Catching Sparrows

Been thinking back over the weekend about the comments made by students regarding things they’d like to see more of in the classroom. It doesn’t surprise me as much as it may some that my students wrote down things like “more essays” and “more grammar.” I went this entire year without a single “art-based” project of any sort, and they are asking for more! Students, I’ve always found, are hungry for knowledge, and at the junior/senior high school level, as they begin to feel the pressure of the wide adult world nudging at their adolescent solipsism, they know they need all the information they can get, and fast.

Which is why I am such a critic of useless, elaborate projects at the high school level, when students should be digging in to the meat of their studies. Many projects, in my mind, often indicate laziness and, absurdly enough, lack of creativity on the part of the teacher. English/language arts, unfortunately, is a magnet for well-intentioned but poorly considered/constructed projects. The other disciplines get their share too, but English seems to have some irresistible attraction - as if there were not enough literature to read that it should be supplemented with a poster or two. So, I collected a few of my favorites-to-hate here.

1. The Folding House Poem Project: A favorite for 11th grade on-level English, until I became team leader and flat out refused to do it, to consider it, to support it, or to give any of the new teachers the resources for it. (I hear there was some black-market trading under the radar, but for the most part the teachers seemed relieved, and tried out my introductory unit on Native American folklore.) Students make about 5 folds in a rectangular piece of paper until it vaguely resembles a house on the outside. They decorate the outside either like their house, or their dream home. When the front flaps are opened, you get the “interior” which is decorated like their room. Open it up all the way to reveal a poem about their house, their room, their life, or some vague, abstract pseudo-poem or loose verse (no format, of course) about anything that might relate to their ideas of what “home” means.

What could be taught: how to write descriptive passages using directions (prepositions) about the layout of their rooms/houses, how to follow a poetic format, how to mimic a poetic format based on a poem read in class.

What is not taught: see “What could be taught.”

Purpose: killing time in the first 3 weeks of school when class size and enrollment fluctuate due to schedule changes, simply because no one wants to put together a horizontally aligned, level-wide lesson plan that could accommodate students changing classes.

2. The Mandala Project: 10th grade. Students write and discuss opposites, a la yin and yang. Compose copious journals on their personal opposites, animals, colors, objects which represent them and why, etc. They then are shown mandalas, and given a paper plate. They trim the scalloped edge from the plate, and create a “mandala” of their own, which they color in and draw or paste pictures to, to represent all the aspects of their personality. The removed scalloped edge is either thrown away, or used as additional decoration in creative ways.

What could be taught: I’m still flummoxed by this one in an English class, except for personal journaling. Anyone?

Purpose: killing time again. Those first 3 weeks are killers.

3. The 1-Pager: Directions may vary. Students are required to complete a letter-sized page “poster.” Used generally as a vocabulary reinforcer. Each student picks a vocab word from the reading. (Just one per student, mind you.) Students must put the vocab word on the page, include a definition, include a quote from the story where the word is used, and then various pictures “attractively arranged” to a) represent the word, b) represent the word’s meaning, c) represent the student’s interpretation of the word, d) represent what the student thinks about the word, e) represent how the word is used in the story, f) represent the word’s importance in the story, g) represent the character related to the word…ad nausea um. (My point being that these projects are usually terribly vague and abstract and difficult to grade EXCEPT on their artistic merit: 1-2 pics +content = C, 3-5 pics +content=B, and etc.)

Purpose: What? You can’t tell that’s a good 1-2 weeks of every-other-day classes for prep and production time?

4. The Tri-fold: as seen in the KTM post about The Project Method (http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2008/02/project-method.html). Students are required to buy an enormous cardboard “tri-fold” and fill it with stuff. Our AP students know this as the “Author Project.” To be fair, they also have to research the author, read two of his/her works, and write some analysis. But then they have to create this tri-fold monster, the best of which go on display in the library, and include 10 or more “artifacts” representing the author’s life, works, etc. Every single year someone staples a decapitated Barbie doll head to one of those suckers. Every. Single. Year.

Purpose: myriad - can be adapted for any purpose/genre/subject.

5. The Alphabet Book: Students must create an alphabet book in which they use one word per letter to describe anything and everything in a book they’ve read/subject being studied. 1 page per word, 1 definition, 1-3 pics, lengthy (and sometimes groping) explanation of how their chosen word relates to the book (especially up in the XYZ
category). I have seen some of these which looked like they were worth a small fortune in scrapbooking supplies. Very pretty. Very time-consuming. More points for better artwork presentation, leaving cash-strapped kids out in the cold.

Purpose: Darwinian annihilation of students who cannot buy out the Hobby Lobby’s selection of stickers, ribbon, scrapbook paper, and small, adhesive medallions.

Warning: also can be adapted for any subject.

6. The Cell Project: Students must create a 3-d representation of a cell (or something from the periodic table) using “whatever.” I don’t know much about this one, honestly. It appears to happen around 9th grade. During this time, small Styrofoam balls litter the hallways, being kicked, thrown, punched, hackey-sacked, speared by cafeteria sporks, bounced off pretty girls’ heads in passing (it is 9th grade, after all), rolled for the tripping factor (10 points for teachers who stumble), and all around abused. Generally, they have
little to recommend them except some markered cross-section which once had little labels on toothpicks stuck in them. The toothpicks are long gone, no doubt used for nefarious purposes.

Purpose: to annoy, I think.

7. Salt Maps: do I need to explain this one?

Edited to add: Home-brewed salt-dough smoothed over cardboard or poster paper. You can do anything with a salt map. Geography. Science. English. After a few months it dries and falls off in chunks. Charming stuff, the salt map.

8. “Interfacing” with technology: any project which has, at its core, the intent to teach students how to interface with technology on a superficially cosmetic level, such as replying to a classroom blog, etc. Has it escaped anyone that teenagers are very, very good at interfacing with technology? I have a colleague with a “Smart” classroom (wired to the hilt, that is), who is having her students make slide shows of books they’re reading. She is struggling to learn the technology as her students zoom past her - thus, it isn’t the students who are learning anything, it’s the teacher. She also has a classroom blog, but when questioned admitted she doesn’t read any blogs, nor know of any to recommend her students read. So what is the point then? What students need to be learning is how to manipulate technology, how to use its myriad programs and capabilities to arrange, display, and explain information. Some good examples of this are dy/dan and his Feltron project, or some of the ideas to be found at 21st Century Collaboration. I’m not against technology in the classroom, just don’t make a project of it if it isn’t teaching students anything about using it.

In short, this is yet another plea to stop the bleeding of elementary and middle school techniques into high school curriculum. Students want to know stuff. They like learning stuff. Their enthusiasm is boundless - go ahead, test it on real, meaty content rather than fluffy cut ‘n paste, and watch them rise to the challenge.