Fall for me is a time to reminisce on back-to-school. What motivates a student to engage in the work of learning? Long ago I wrote an observation of my youngest son engaging in one of our Level 2 Integrated Literature and Writing units.
What stood out to me as a mom and an educator is the fact that, after writing his way through the book, Søren created a culminating project that was conjured up in his very own imagination. Creativity is NOT extracurricular. Creativity combats the “I can’t” grumbles.
With our approach, each book is read and explored over the course of four weeks. During the fifth week, students develop a creative culminating project with options that provide a variety of ways for them to demonstrate deep understanding of the book. Students not only get a chance to demonstrate their originality, organization, clarity of purpose, and critical thinking skills, more importantly this culminating endeavor will allow them to show off what they have learned in their own, uniquely creative way.
~Kimberly