PBL: an Example from Fiction

My daughter and I read a book together this summer as part of her summer reading requirements. Dancing on the Inside is the story of a twelve year old girl who is afraid to start her first class, but feels a passion for dance inside her heart.

Jenny bravely sticks with the ballet class - not as a dancer, but as an observer. She watches the classes and then practices what she sees at home and with her dancer friend, Ara. Jenny discovers a love of choreography while trying to help Ara control her energetic dance style.

This is where light bulbs started going off in my head. Here we have Jenny, a girl suffering from social phobia who is able to follow her passion and learn while working on a project. Jenny and Ara work together to craft a beautiful story ballet, eventually convincing their dance studio to stage the performance. Jenny throws herself wholeheartedly into the choreography, learning a lot about dance and herself in the process. She learns that the process is long and hard, but the work is rewarding.

The end product: Jenny's ballet is received with much praise by her audience, including the local media. Tie in to PBL: Jenny's project was shared with the world. It was REAL. It wasn't a practice project stuck in a binder.

I don't want to spoil more of the book - so please look it up for yourself. In fact, I would recommend this book to all new teachers and those who are interested in PBL. It's a short, quick read, but it maps out PBL in such a natural way that I found it quite inspirational. My daughter put the book down 3/4 of the way in to grab paper and pencils. Her mind was already at work with ideas of her own. Jenny inspired her to follow her passions.

The Crunch

School starts in four weeks. Teacher orientation starts in two and a half weeks. Summer is almost over and it's crunch time.

I spent most of my summer gleaning information from twitter, webinars, blogs, google+, facebook, and face-to-face conversations. At the beginning of August, I created a blueprint for my classes, mapping out the where, when, and hows.

Now, it all comes together. This week, I've been focusing on google accounts. My school does not use Google Apps for Education, but my students do use many google apps. To make this easy (ha!) I set up a google account for each student to use while in my class. I give them a password and link the accounts to my google account so I can monitor and address issues as needed. It's not a perfect system, but it works. It takes massive amounts of time to set up. Breaks are a must.

My plan for this year: PBL. I have a lot to learn and a lot to explore in the next few months as I start to implement PBL in more of my classes. I've used PBL on a smaller scale for the past two years - it's time to expand.

While my mind is mostly focused on curriculum, I'm also thinking about my classroom setup. Last year I was fortunate enough to be able to swap out desks for tables. This year, I will continue with the tables, but I'm desperately searching Craigslist to see if I can change my long tables for round tables. Round tables would allow me to move easily around my classroom, and check in with table groups. I would love to do something like this.

My plan for the walls is much like the design in my GTA video:

I'm currently working on adding wood grain to butcher paper to make the railings and parts of the cabin. Here's where I got that idea.

It may be crunch time, but I still have two and a half weeks to enjoy sleeping in (which, really, is the best part about summer)!

Developing Literature Curriculum

On The English Companion Ning, I often run across posts by new or returning teachers asking for advice on developing a curriculum. This is the process I use. It's important to note that I teach at a private school, so I do not have to use the CCSS, but I do keep them in mind for accountability.

For my 10th grade World Literature classes, I completed lengthy research to pick a central theme or idea for the year. I decided to go with Stories of the Sea for a number of reasons:

• Adventure books appeal to both genders
• There are many different types of conflict to discuss (man vs. man, man vs. nature, etc.)
• The books are clean but intelligent (an important consideration for my school)

The books I chose:
- Lieutenant Hornblower (England, France, West Indies)
- Whale Rider (New Zealand)
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories (India)
- Twelfth Night
- Kon-Tiki (Norway, South America, Phillipines)

I don't plan in detail at the beginning of the year. I prefer to adjust to the culture of each individual class and student before I make final decisions. However, I do brainstorm a general direction of where I'd like to head.

As my classes typically make use of Project Based Learning (PBL), I always start each unit by thinking of essential questions.

In September, my Honors class will start with Kon-Tiki. After a rich discussion on Heyerdahl's passion for adventure, learning, and achievement, I want to set my students free to explore and reflect on their own interests and passions.

As you can see at the top right of the board, my goal this year is to awaken curiosity.

As you can see, I'm still in the planning phases. Exact phrases and the wording of my essential questions are still in flux. In this unit for Whale Rider, I plan to read the short book aloud while my students discuss through a backchannel.

This particular unit for Lieutenant Hornblower is in the brainstorming phase. I want my students to use the true PBL model to construct their own answers to the essential questions, but I'm not sure what that will look like (which isn't a bad thing, it's in the nature of PBL). The novella is one of my ideas... but we will see. I'm curious to get feedback from my students on how they would like to approach these questions. I need to keep balance in mind - good suggestions along with gentle prodding to help students take charge of their learning. My goal is for the students to craft purposeful projects that have real-world importance.

My challenge this year is to also fit in the required research paper. I'm thinking of shortening the assignment, as we will be conducting research and writing the entire year. That will leave the last few weeks of May into the first week of June to complete the paper. I do like the assignment, as it sums up the year neatly. Students take an aptitude test, chose a career they are interested in learning more about, write a paper, and give an Ignite presentation.

This is how I think through the literature portion of my year. For more on how I approach scheduling ELA across a week of five 42 minute periods, see this post.

Project Based Learning (PBL) in the English Classroom

Last night, while scouring the web for Project Based Learning examples in the English Classroom, I hit the proverbial wall. There are a paltry amount of posts on this topic - and blog posts are what I want to find. I need examples, people! I have seen how teachers tag English on to a History or Math project by including writing parts. That's all fine and dandy, but what about literature?

Let's start by defining what Project Based Learning isn't. I came across this video on twitter last night.

What PBL isn't, from a HTH facilitator: howtovideos.hightechhigh.org/video/265/What… #newtechnetwork
— Julia Lesley (@julia_lesley) July 13, 2012

This is such a helpful video in clarifying what is at the heart of PBL. I think my projects are honestly about 50% Project Based Learning and 50% Project Oriented Learning. I'd like to shift the PBL number to a higher percentage, which means I need to rethink how I do things.

As I see it, PBL encourages students to construct their own knowledge on a topic while engaging their interests.

My students put it this way:

"Mrs. Walden... you're being vague again."

Yes! I am. But with purpose! I don't want to spoon feed my students, but teach them how to feed themselves.

But I digress, back to literature. So how do we English teachers put this theory into practice?

Here are my (untested) thoughts:

1. Start with an essential question. 
2. Give the students a reason to care - a real-world tie in. 
3. Introduce a book that applies to the question.
4. Read and discuss and discover together. Get out of the way of the conversation - go with the flow.
5. Allow rabbit trails. This is BIG for me. I believe that books (and movies) awake curiosity within us. For example: My kids came home from watching the movie Brave last weekend, pulled The Dangerous Book for Boys off the bookshelf and spent an entire afternoon constructing bows and arrows. I want this type of digression to happen in the classroom.
6. Finally, summarize, present, and share learning with each other and outsiders. 

This year is going to be interesting. It all looks rather vague at this point (see what I did there?)... but that's a good thing. I'm constructing my own knowledge of how to make PBL work in the English Classroom.