First project: Getting to Know You

     I started off in September with a project called “Getting To Know You” that I got from my friend of many years Linda Guthrie.  The goal of the project is to get to know the other students in the class.  This knowledge is then presented in description, graphic, and oral forms.  

     I began the project with large and small group discussions of what it means to get to know someone.  Students reflect on what they want others to know about them and what they want to know about others as they get to know them.  Thinking about their own qualities and how they want to be seen by others is a red meat topic for adolescents which makes this a winning project.  Writing on this topic is one part of the project.

     From these discussions students develop a set of questions they would ask other students in an effort to get to know them.  They use these questions to interview a certain number of other students in the class, taking notes on the answers.  These interviews are the basis for multi-paragraph essays on individual students.  Some of these were done on the laptops.

     Again through discussion the students develop a set of simple preferences that each student can express, such as “favorite movie” or “favorite food.”  Each student then asks every other student to answer these questions, and the results are entered into a grid.  This information can be graphed, and I asked the three math teachers my students had if they would handle this part of the project.  This had mixed results, but in the best case it resulted in a nice set of graphs of different types.  Students then wrote brief explanations of the data in each graph.
     Another written part of the project asked students to discuss how they thought the class would be during the year ahead.  This also involved some discussion before writing.  

     The final part of the project was to make a podcast or movie of some part of the project--interviews, graphs, etc.  This could have been supplemented by a class blog or small group dramatizations, but it was already getting a little long.

     I really liked this project as a way to start the year.  Students develop a sense of unity as a class.   They got to know students they didn’t know before.  They spent a lot of time talking to each other (which they’re going to do anyway).  There was a nice variety of writing assignments and many possibilities for extension into other media.  The link with the math teachers worked well with one teacher, not so well with the others.  More preparation would be needed on this part next time.

     I look forward to improving this project and using it next year.  It could be adapted for any grade level.

     Next:  Narrative Project on learning about right and wrong.