Giving Back Before We Go 
                                                                            By:  Lyndsay Daly

Project at a Glance :

Students taking English for College Prep are all college-bound, and have used this class so far to read fiction, look at syllabi, apply to colleges, and identify hopes fears and norms for their college experience. This unit will allow students to practice their research, writing, and presentation skills. (IMPORTANT NOTE: The products, which are an annotated bibliography, research paper, and TED talk, required students to choose a solution before the investigation stage!)

Driving Question:

How can we improve our community?      

Standards:

•  CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.A  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.B 
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.C  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.D  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.1.E  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.8  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.7  
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.8  

Team / Culture Building:

• Use the Creative Types activity, then ask students to find a partner with a different personality than themselves to make a groups of 3 - 4 students. 

Entry Event:

• Draw your dream community map: teacher provides 12X12 paper, stickers, markers. What is there to do? Who is there? What is there to be proud of? How does the community add to the value of the region?
• Then, we all circle things that the Allendale community includes.

Stakeholders:

• Allendale High School
• Allendale community​​​

• Family
• Educators
• Administrators

Empathy Building:

• Bug List

• Empathy Map for a newcomer to Allendale
• Empathy Map for someone you know (resident of Allendale)​

• Glow and Grow chart​

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

•  List of community contacts
• Interviews with community members
• Research about community wellness: Google Scholar, peer-reviewed articles.

Incubation:

• Use the MindMeister tool to create an outline for their essay.​

​Checking in:

• Daily conferring during choice reading
• Rubric self assessment after each stage
• Tell it to a Toddler​

• 3-12-3 specifics they would implement, 2 reasons these implementations are necessary, and 1 problem in the community that this addresses/solves.​

• Students must choose an authentic audience and receive feedback from that audience at least one during the brainstorming process.

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Solution Building:

• Use the Idea Quota protocol to generate ideas.
  
• How would ____ Solve this?
  
• Saturate and Group
  
• Combinideation
  
• Create ‘solutions packages’
  
• Ask for audience input on ideas.

Critique and Revision: 

• The Anti-Problem
  
• Speedboat
  
• Elevator Pitches

Authentic Audience:

• Students all had to cc the teacher on an email inviting an authentic audience member. Students invited the School Board, teachers who had prep hour, administrators, community members, and business owners. The teacher invited all parents. 

Final Presentation:

• Students gave a TED talk- style presentation in the HS auditorium for their final presentation.
  
• Students individually chose solutions, method of presentation, and accompanying visuals.

Click here for teacher's full plan.

Reflection and Feedback:

• Students offered audience members a QR code to submit questions.
• Program audience members received.
• Question Doc
• Annotated Bib Rubric
• Research Paper Rubric
• TED Talk Rubric
• \Final Reflection (part of final exam portfolio).
• On their own, students could respond to audience questions on the live doc.​

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Lyndsay Daly has been teaching ELA at Allendale High School for her whole teaching career. She often teaches 9th, 11th, and AP Literature and Composition. This project was built and run with a new course for seniors, called English for College Preparation.

     “The more I engage with PBL, the more comfortable I feel embedding it into every aspect of my teaching.”