How do I want the world to see me? 
By:  Eric Wilkinson

Project at a Glance :

As part of the Big Read, students will explore The Great Gatsby, American Born Chinese, and Mexikid. They will explore how the characters in these novels choose an external identity and examine how this affects their self-image. Many of my students will have already read most of these novels as freshmen and sophomores. Our focus will be on helping younger students connect with these themes on identity. We will also be exploring these ideas with the wider adult community. This unit will take 3-4 weeks.

Driving Question:

How does my chosen identity affect me and those around me? How can we help underclassmen connect to this theme through literature?            

Standards:

• CCSS.RL.11-12.3 &  5 
• CCSS: SL.11-12.2

Team / Culture Building:

• Writing groups are established via a personality profile called  Principles You. The information from this activity helps create heterogeneous groups of students who can work well together. Students begin class each day with a non-academic question that requires them to reach consensus on an answer they will share with the class.
• Before addressing the driving question, students will also complete the Hopes, Fears, & Norms protocol. ​​

Entry Event:

• Host a Gatsby-style party for students and their authentic audience (English2 Honors class). Creative writing students will be given roles to play based on characters in Gatsby. These characters will have a “public persona” and an “underlying identity",  inspired by this  clip from Parks and Rec. The E2 Honors students will have to meet several “characters” and jot down their first impressions of them. Who are they? Who are they pretending to be? How do they want to be perceived?

Stakeholders:

• English 2 Honors students read The Great Gatsby
• English1 students read American Born Chinese
• The Big Read Community

Empathy Building:

• Interview the Honors 1A students and sophomores in Honors 2A to build empathy.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Touchstone tour with various genres
• Use the Netflix Template to outline “episodes” of The Great Gatsby.
• Save the Last Word with readings and supplementary materials (read articles on “personal brands” and influences whose private identities differ from their public identities
• Create an Empathy Map for a character in novel.
• Drawing emotional faces activity.
• Introduce exemplars of various genres (poems, screenplays, graphic novels, etc).​

• The Big Read provided copies of the novel The Great Gatsby for students. Handing kids a book that they can write in, highlight, and keep is huge! For most students this was a re-read, but this allowed students to discuss the themes without worrying about spoilers.

Incubation:

• Forced Analogies: How am I like a pizza? How am I like a car? How am I like an app on a phone? How am I like _______? Do this for ourselves and for our character in the novel.
• Haiku and Cinquain lesson.
• Draft poems exploring the identity of a character.
• “Where I’m From,” “The Words Under the Words,” epitaph, blackout, golden shovel, and villanelle.
• Write a poem for two voices: How does the character want the world to see them? What’s their “true” identity?
• Have students create a similar poem for themselves.
• 3-2-1 Bridge before and after reading a portion of the novel.
• True for Who to explore characters from the novel in conflict and dramatize the scene (screenplay portion)
• Options Diamond to explore the similarities and contrasts between our authentic selves and our public selves.
• ​Graphic Novel lesson.

Checking in:

• During each stage of the project, we will use the FAST Rubric Reflections. These reflections will allow me to check in with students about once per week​.

• Possible protocols for checking in:  Start, Stop, Continue, Save the Last Word,  Tell It to a Toddler, and Check In, Check Out.

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Solution Building:

• Students enjoyed the variety of ways to write about the novel. They thought their authentic audience would especially appreciate the black out poems, the Netflix landing pages, and the graphic novels.
• After writing multiple poems students used the Bracketology protocol to rank them.

Critique and Revision: 

• Students watched the Austin's Butterfly video to learn how to give each other feedback on their writing.
• They also used Poetry Madlib to help them revise their poems.
• Mr. Wilkinson provided instant feedback as students were drafting their poems.

Authentic Audience:

• Freshmen and sophomores who are reading The Great Gatsby and American Born Chinese.

Final Presentation:

• Use either a Gallery Walk experience or short videos where students “read aloud” their versions of the texts.
  
• Students chose the most engaging form to share the texts with their audience.​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• ​Adapt the validation rubric from the FAST Rubrics.
• Students will reflect throughout the process. During investigation, they will reflect on their research but especially on the stakeholders. They will also reflect on their solution and how it accomplishes the task. This will be in the form of an elevator pitch and might include a prototype.
• After sharing their product, they will reflect on the feedback they received from their audience and their contributions to the final product.​

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

Meet the Educator:

Eric Wilkinson teaches English at West Ottawa High School. 

     "PBL helps students see a purpose for their work.  It's more meaningful because it impacts them and their community."