Project Based Learning

 ELA 8th Grade 2021-2022 Project Based Learning

Ongoing:

Changing the World One Poem at a Time

In this project, students create video montages of social justice poetry. Each student chooses a social justice poem and analyzes the elements of content and craft that make it powerful and effective. Students find or create accompanying images that enhance their selected poem’s meaning and record an expressive oral performance of the poem. 

Teams collaborate to storyboard and produce a montage video that ties the poems together around a common theme. Students also create a response poem or social justice poem of their own inspired by one of their classmates’ selected poems. Finally, students work together as a class to create a community exhibition featuring their video montages as well as their original poems paired with images and the mentor texts that inspired them.

https://my.pblworks.org/project/changing-world-one-poem-time

Quarter 1:

What’s the true cost of the things we buy?

Project Summary

When we go shopping, it’s easy to get caught up in the stories marketers sell us: we tend to want the fastest cell phones, the snazziest sneakers, or the most delicious lattes. But what are the REAL stories behind the products we know and love? In this project, students take on the role of investigative reporters, researching the origin stories of a variety of everyday products. Each team of students selects a different popular brand-name item and researches the political, environmental, economic, and social impacts of the item’s manufacture and distribution, following the product from the extraction of raw resources all the way to the consumer. Students compile their research into a magazine article for an audience of potential consumers of those products. Then, in a panel, they discuss their findings and potential solutions to help promote sustainable production now and in the future.

https://my.pblworks.org/project/scoop-our-stuff

Quarter 2:

I'm Your Biggest Fan

How do we, as web content editors, develop a quality-controlled and age-appropriate website for our school’s fan fiction writers?

Project Summary

Thousands of tweens and teens all over the world write fan fiction to extend the universes of their favorite books and stories. From Harry Potter to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, from The Hunger Games to The Hate U Give, there are mythical prequels, spin-offs, and alternative endings that are voluntarily and enthusiastically written by kids looking to continue interacting with their favorite characters and looking to see themselves in the novels they read. But the current fan fiction websites with which students often engage usually have limited vetting of story quality and many are highly adult in their content. In this PBL project, students write fan fiction based on any classroom novel or independent reading book. They become experts in high-quality fan fiction and develop an age-appropriate website to house classroom stories. 

As an extension of this project, students become editors who give feedback on peer submissions from all over the school to create a robust archive of high-quality fan fiction stories on the school’s new student-run, fan fiction website.

https://my.pblworks.org/project/im-your-biggest-fan

Quarter 3:

Eco Writers

How can we teach children to be stewards of the environment?

Project Summary

In this project, students partner with children in K–2 classrooms to write children’s books about environmental issues. Students work with a buddy in that class to identify that child’s favorite animal and children’s book. Students then work to develop a fictional children’s book about the animal and its ecosystem using ecological concepts to drive the plot. As students write their books, they learn about the structure of plot in children’s books (introduction, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and resolution) and how this structure parallels human impacts on the environment (rising action being the introduction of a human-made impact on the ecosystem, resolution being the remediation of a human-made impact). Through this project, students will learn about the specific ecosystem that is the focus of the book, food webs, ecosystem interactions, resources, and human impact on the environment. In addition, students will evaluate the best ways to remediate the human effect on an ecosystem and include that best method in the resolution of the book. Students will then go back to the K–2 school to read the book to their buddy and give the book to that child.

https://my.pblworks.org/project/eco-writers

Climate: The Change We Need

Quarter 4:

Project Summary

In this project students discover the importance of local communities taking action and implementing a multifaceted approach to solve the climate crisis.

Learning from experts, students are introduced to some of the causes and effects of climate change, as well as potential solutions. Working together in teams, they conduct scientific research to gain a deeper understanding of the human behavior and scientific causes behind climate change as well as its impacts on the environment and on society.

Students are introduced to the work of Project Drawdown, and teams select a specific solution from one of nine sectors to study in depth. As students examine the costs, benefits, and detailed actions involved in implementing this solution, they gather data and information they will use to explain the solution to others.

Students identify a target audience for their information and design an infographic using visual data to show what actions need to be taken and what the outcomes will be if those solutions are or are not enacted. Students present their infographics to policy makers, business leaders, and other community members to inform and inspire them to take specific climate action.

https://my.pblworks.org/project/climate-change-we-need

The Scoop on Our Stuff