If Students Designed Their Own Unit

Co-authored with Rebecca Clark

Throughout conversations we’ve had with colleagues, friends, and family, the one thing that everyone says they wish they had more of is time.  Whether in the classroom or at home, the time we have just never seems enough.  We do our best to structure it to reach the goals we set, but sometimes we get caught up in the frenzy of it all, and we lose focus on what really matters.  Here's a good reminder of how important time is:

When we’re so busy leading structured lives and moving on from activity to activity, we forget that freedom, playfulness and fun is not a waste of time.  In fact, it’s exactly what we need to be more creative and innovative.  Google knows this; they’ve got their 20% rule.  Michael Thompson agrees with it and advocates for more unstructured time for kids, as he shared with parents and teachers a few weeks ago on campus.  

Some teachers are now getting into the mix.  Schools in the UK are trying out the 20% rule in their classes.   Students at the Korean International School design their own clubs around passions or interests they have instead of joining teacher-directed ones.  

Some schools have even "broken down the bells" and implemented a more structure-free approach to enhance learning.  The Istanbul International Community School allows seniors to spend two periods a day pursuing student-directed projects.  And there’s even a high school in Great Barrington, Massachusetts that offers students to “design their own school” for a semester (see video).

While we may not be quite there with implementing ideas such as these,  it’s certainly worth thinking about how this relates to our RLA classrooms. I’m sure you’ll agree, when it comes to the workshop model, it’s challenging to find time for freedom to play, explore and have fun.  We need to ask ourselves:

• Do we allow enough time for generating creative ideas within our units?
• What is an effective pace for fostering creativity as we move from unit to unit?
• How many units are feasible over the course of a year?
• When do our students get to "play" or "breathe" as readers and writers? How do they do it?
• Should we consider a 20% rule in RLA? If so, how? If not, why not?

It just so happens, our Grade 8 teachers have thought a lot about this, and they’ve come up with something exciting.  Building on the success of last year's pilot, all Grade 8 students will follow their passions, interests and wonders within a genre of their choice during an independent writing unit this month.

Applying everything they have learned in the workshop model, they will choose genres that enable them to capture their ideas in purposeful ways. Some will choose genres that have never been part of an RLA unit of study while others will go back to a genre they loved but were never able to explore further. Even still, some writers may "tell their story" in a multimedia genre. While the choosing of the topic and genre are important, the emphasis of this unit is on the process as the skills that writers use to generate, draft, revise, edit, and publish are the same.

Along the way, they will work within a team of writers who will support, challenge and hold them accountable. Like the team of students in the "If Students Designed Their Own Schools" video, these teams will also serve as a first authentic audience, and the feeling of "not wanting to let them down" will motivate each writer further. 

This is but one example of what we can do in our classrooms to foster creativity through extended time. And with that creativity comes ownership and authentic learning. The irony is we don't take enough time to sit down as a group and think about questions, ideas, and possibilities like these. So why not consider this the beginning of our conversation. Leave a comment on what you're thinking, add an idea that has worked in your classroom, or consider what the future of RLA might look like if students designed their own units.

Designing a Complete Curriculum

The crowd hushed while the orchestra pit came to life this past Thursday at Radio City Music Hall.  In no time at all, actors and dancers hit the stage to perform their vignettes.  It seemed like another typical day in the life of this iconic theatre, but this time the song and dance wasn't the most recent interpretation of an old musical.  Instead it was the launch of Samsung's new answer to the iPhone, the Galaxy 4S.

It's odd that a company would go to such lengths to announce a product to the world, but why shouldn't it?  After all, it has designed something amazing worth celebrating.  Tired of swiping your smartphone with your finger?  Well now you can use your eye.

You're probably wondering how this is relevant to teaching RLA.  Here's the thing. We're so busy teaching and assessing academic, discipline-based standards, we're forgetting one key component that enables the people at Samsung or any other innovative company to work their magic.  Design.  

There are lots of reasons why we should add design standards to our curriculum and teach to them more directly in our classes.  Here are just a few:

"Design" and "Create" are at Level Four on the DOK

• There's a lot more to design than meets the eye.  Steve Jobs, one of the most famous designers of all time, said, "Design is a not just what it looks like and feels like.  Design is how it works." His definition isn't just limited to the IKEA desk or iPhone.  It applies to meaning and understanding as well.  When we teach design and offer our students to use it when expressing their ideas, their learning is much deeper as a result.

• To design is to create.  When we create, we think across disciplines and take all of the learning into consideration before we put paint to canvas.

• By engaging in design, we practice and enhance other essential skills.  According to Frank Nuovo, former Vice President and Chief of Design at Nokia, design is about solving problems and creating solutions.  Not only that, good designers don't work in isolation.  Relying on sound interpersonal skills, designers collaborate with others which leads them to even better ideas.  

Quiz:  Match the Font

• Design is more crucial now than ever before.  As Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, puts it, there has been a "democratization of design." What was once reserved only for the financial elite or the highly skilled, design tools are now readily used by a larger population.  Just take a look at laptops, digital SLRs, smartphones, and the growing list of software and applications that run them.  Still not convinced?  Try out the quiz that Pink put out to his readers.  He claims that twenty-five years ago only the experts would've been right.  Now, most of us are (scroll down for the answers). As a result, the marketplace is increasingly more competitive, and design elements have become a game changer.

• Design elements enable us to communicate in ways that go well beyond words alone.  Sure, as RLA teachers, we focus on words as our medium, but in today's world, we understand the power of images.  But there are additional elements in design tools that enhance communication such as color, fonts, music, and layout.   

Simply put, if we choose not to include design in our teaching, we're missing the boat.  And when we miss the boat, our students are stranded as well.  With that in mind, here are some possibilities for our classrooms:

• Teach a design mini-lesson:  Take a design element and see how it might fit as a teaching point for a mini-lesson.  For example, as a reading response students can use color and shapes instead of words to capture the mood of a chapter.  They may also sketch objects from the text to represent symbols. 

• Evaluate real world design samples:  Have students become design critics when viewing a youtube clip, a trailer, a visual ad, Blog themes,  etc.  Students can explain what works and what doesn't work in terms of design elements.

• Use design-based tools with fixed templates:  Many tools offer preset templates that include effective design elements such as iMovie trailers, Prezis, Blogs, Pic Collage, Glogster, Keynote, even Microsoft Word and Powerpoint.  When students select templates have them explain their choices based on how the design elements enhance the meaning they are trying to convey.

• Teach toward design-based extension projects:  When students complete a Literature Circle book, extend their learning with projects that require purposefully-chosen design elements.  It could be a bumper sticker, a commemorative stamp, a monument, a theme quilt patch, you name (click here for a list of great ones).  Again have students explain their choices in terms of design as well as literary analysis.

Before you get started though, I have to warn you.  Many of our students have lost their innate willingness to design.  Gordon MacKenzie, a former creative director at Hallmark Cards, tells of his countless school visits where he asks students, "How many artists are there in the room?"  The responses are nearly always the same.  The kindergartners all raise their hands while by sixth grade, not a single student raises his hand.  

Here's why.  To design means to risk, and along with risk comes failure.  Many students are more concerned with "getting it right" than "trying it out."  It's not entirely their fault.  That's the way we've taught them. 

So why don't we model it by taking a risk and trying out some of these design ideas in our classrooms?  Who knows, we may be surprised with what we and our students create.  Whatever it'll be, it'll certainly be cause for celebration.  In the meantime, I'll check for availability at Radio City Music Hall.

Answers to the quiz:  1. b, 2. c, 3. a