Embrace the Mess: Collaborative, Student-driven Projects

Embracing the messiness of important learning . . .

Student's display on Frank Sinatra. 

I'm getting ready for it--the mess in my classroom.  In fact, it has already begun.  Today, there were three tri-fold display boards, splayed across tables next to a huge paper cutter, piles of cut paper strips, scattered glue sticks, and scissors as I wove my way to my desk.  A sewing dummy, wearing a cute forties jacket shares space with the desktop. In the next several days--if all goes well--my room will slowly collect objects--an old record player and radio from the 1940s, fabric, lamps, and other odd objects.  One week from today, a couple classrooms, along with the adjoining common room will be transformed into a "living museum" of the 1940s--the culmination of a 8-week unit for two sections of 9/10th graders.

A student's display in progress on fashion of the 1940s.

But it's not the physical mess that is most challenging.  The other mess I refer to is letting go (somewhat) of control--allowing students to plan and create.  After all, I don't know what they will come up with for the museum, and though my humanities colleague and I guide them with rubrics, ideas, pictures from past years, and they have a solid background of the era, it's up to them to create a space that takes us into the past. And the museum opens to the public.  Student-led projects like this, with an authentic audience, require me to let go, to truly trust that the students will create something of value and that they are learning.  It means I'll feel that little pit in my stomach as I watch the inevitably rocky start of the group planning--as students bicker and brainstorm, bicker some more, and then come up with some vague idea before they prance off to lunch, and I'm sitting there thinking, it's not happening.  Every year I watch the beginning and think, nope, they are going to run out of time; they're going to continue to waste time and argue.  Then, a week or so later, I walk into a space that resembles a dimly lit 1920's speakeasy, with jazz, dancing flappers, a table of card players, and organized displays on topics such as music, art, and politics of the 1920s.  I watch in wonderment as students act as a forties "family" in a mock living room, complete with newspapers and Life magazines from the 1940s that they (or I) found at local thrift stores. They've even rolled paper "cigarettes" because they want to be authentic of the era.  For the sixties, we've burned "draft cards" and created anti-war posters.  For the last ten or so years that I've been assigning this project, the students have always come through.  But the beginning is hard to watch.

I tell students, this is your mantra this week.

As I told my students today, collaboration is hard.  Yet you can't avoid it, so it's worth practicing.  And as I go from group to group, stepping in to help with the process or an idea, I know that they're practicing crucial skills.  As they flounder  (and yesterday this looked like two students monopolizing the brainstorming session with an argument), they must learn strategies to communicate more effectively (today I watched a student grab a marker from a desk and tell her group assertively, "we need a talking stick!").  Today, I reminded them of the important skill of delegating, and I watched later as one student asked a "wandering" student if he could go find her something her group needed. These are skills we don't necessarily teach in schools, yet almost any job (not to speak of family life) will require some form of collaboration.

Learning to swing dance

So, I embrace the messiness of learning: learning to work with others, to create quality visual presentations, to innovate, to communicate knowledge to an outside audience, and to manage time.  In a week, I'll be in the common room enjoying a students' performance of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, listening to "Henry Wallace" give a speech, getting my "ration tickets," and eating Wonder Bread and Spam from the 1940s cafe.

Top Five Tips for student-driven projects:
1. Before and as they start, show and discuss models from past years (of writing, displays, any final products)
2. Make the planning visible: post planning sheets, to-do lists, supplies lists, and schedules.
3. Create small groups, making sure that there's some student leadership in each one.
4. Stress that the goal is the final project, but also remind them of and assess the skills that they're practicing: collaboration, communication, and problem solving.  Provide (and model) tools for collaborating effectively.
5. Provide an authentic, out of school audience, if possible, for the final project. Parents, alumni, and local community members are often willing to come support student work.

Student's display on V.P. Wallace that raised the bar: now all students want 3-D parts on their tri-folds.

Learning to dance the Charleston in the "speakeasy" from past 1920s Project

Vignette from past 1940s "Living Museum".  One year we even purchased a giant old radio from the decade.  Sometimes, antique stores are willing to loan us clothing and artifacts.

Want to challenge your students? Ask them to make a film.

Film-Making: A wonderful mix of creativity, collaboration, and organization

This Thursday evening marks the 10th anniversary of the Student Film Festival at the Compass School, where I teach high school humanities. I vividly recall the moment I conceived of the film-making course.  I had been at the school for a couple years, and it was near the end of the year. The school was immersed in a week of independent student-chosen projects, and I watched a group of several 11th and 12th graders work on a short film based on one of the popular TV shows of the time, Survivor.  I was struck by how much fun they were having. They cast their science teacher as the leader, filming themselves as characters challenged to make it out of school alive. The final product was fun, and it got lots of laughs at the end-of-year presentation.

I wanted to harness that excitement, but I also wanted to challenge my students to make something non-derivative.  I also love movies.

The next spring, the science/technology teacher and I launched a six-week elective. Knowing nothing about film-making myself, I had easily convinced my tech-savy colleague that if he taught the technical end, I could teach the writing and film analysis part. I would help students generate ideas for screenplays and analyze films in order to inform their own. With his experience as a photographer and tech-guy, he would teach them how to shoot wisely and efficiently, how to frame good shots, and how to edit (we use Premiere Pro).  So, an interdisciplinary course for 11/12th graders was born at Compass.

Since then, I have watched the popular course challenge students like perhaps nothing else I teach. One of the challenges is that the whole course takes place in six or seven weeks, and they make two short films in that time. I provide a few lessons on what makes a good story (including the theory that there are only two stories in the whole world) and the screenplay format, and then we work on generating ideas for their scripts (see my earlier post, SnowGlobe for some of the prompts). We discuss scenes and short films in class, and they watch and write about films as homework.  

As they're in the midst of the screenplay writing process, they're simultaneously thrown into camera work, including the creation of a short silent film to try out the idea of telling a story visually.  Three weeks into the course, they pitch their original scripts, and then quickly began to cast and seek locations with their four-member production crews. Finally, one of the keys to the success of the course is the public exhibition of the films in a evening event. The public venue, even if it's just at our little school, raises the stakes.  I even invite a few local film-makers to act as judges. The students' pride and gratification at seeing their stories come to fruition on screen, with a rapt audience, is powerful. 

Like any course, different things challenge different students, but in their final reflections, most students point to the hardest thing of all--organization. To produce a film, they need to constantly think ahead, create (and revise) a schedule, communicate with outside community members (for acting and locations), and deal with forces beyond their control (weather, sick actors, etc).  If they don't have someone in their group who naturally keeps track of costumes, props, and details like mic batteries, they learn quickly the need to keep a list and a storage place. They also need to immerse themselves in the messy creative process with peers who they didn't necessarily choose to work with (though we choose groups carefully). I've watched this assignment of creating a film throw some of my brightest, most motivated students.  I've also watched many diverse groups pull together their different skills, and create some powerful, beautifully shot films. 

The beauty of the course is that students are at the center of the work, and they take complete ownership. In the end, I just stand behind them (or sometimes in front of the camera), push a little, and provide some guidance as needed; my role is the coach rather than the teacher.  They are the leaders/artists/teachers.  (see the Coalition of Essential Schools Principles: http://www.essentialschools.org/items/4) 

A senior in the course last year, who had been at Compass since 7th grade, spoke eloquently at the film festival Q and A session about how he saw the film-making course as the ideal culminating project for his secondary education, for it involved all the skills he'd been honing for years: communication, creativity, technology, problem solving, collaboration and organization.  (see his group's film below)

So, I encourage teachers to look around and watch what students are excited by. Then harness that energy. Create a course that will require them to take ownership of a challenging, interdisciplinary, creative task. Then step back and watch the learning happen.

Here's a good article about the importance of the arts in schools.  The author posits that companies need people who can problem solve, collaborate, and tell a story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tarnoff/stem-to-steam-recognizing_b_756519.html

Finally, here is a 13 minute film created (in about 2.5 weeks) by a group of four 11/12th grade students in 2013    (warning: some car violence)