Bedford High School

Senior Culminating Project Handbook

undergoing some revision2010-11

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Table of Contents

Page Topic

3 Purposes of the Senior Culminating Project

4 Components of the Senior Culminating Project in Brief

6 Step-by-step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Schematic Guide

8 Step-by-step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Fanciful Example

10 Essential Questions and Our Five Themes (borrowed from Neil Postman)

18 SCP Assessment Outline: Deadlines and grade component weighting

19 Essential Questions: A Brief Primer

22 Project Log: Expectations, Format, and Samples

25 Evidence of Research

28 Interdisciplinary Connections

30 Criteria for Presentation

31 Contract

32 Suggested general format for a letter/email to a potential "outside expert"

33, 34 Differentiation of Levels and of Major/Minor

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Purposes of the Senior Culminating Project

The senior culminating project is designed to give student the chance to do a major piece of independent work, with some guidance and within some broad and flexible guidelines. We hope this is a chance for students to explore questions, domains, and activities that are of great personal interest to them — that matter to them. We also hope that students are able to strengthen existing connections, as they make new ones, between their "school lives" and their lives beyond school.

In working on their projects, students are encouraged to use this opportunity to synthesize a variety of the skills and concepts they have developed and explored throughout their academic careers. The hope is that these become truly "culminating" projects: statements about what students have learned over a long period of time.

By stressing community involvement , we expect to forge stronger ties between the school and the larger community — local, regional, and beyond. We think that people outside the school will learn some things about the high school as students work on these projects, and that we will learn some things about them.

We look forward to being surprised by these projects, and hope that students surprise themselves — perhaps by their willingness to look at an issue in a new way, or by placing themselves in a situation they find challenging, or by trying something they are not quite sure they can do.

We expect to learn about students' interests and the specific content of their projects. We also want to find out what students learn and experience more generally as they apply their "school knowledge" outside the walls of the school, and what they learn and experience as they to bring "outside" learning back into the academic setting.

We are certain that students will learn a great deal from each other, as they both work on and present their projects.

The senior culminating project is an experiment. Perhaps it is helpful to view it, like all teaching and learning, as a never-ending experiment. Every year so far, the course has been modified to at least some degree based on student feedback and our collective exeperiences with the course. Your projects, including all the research, reflection, work, learning, interpreting, and making you do along the way will be an essential part of this experiment.

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Components of the Senior Culminating Project in brief:

Essential Question(s) and sub-essential questions: Consider the crafting of essential and sub-essential questions as the foundation for everything else. What is the big, important question to which you are trying to find some good answers? What are some of the other questions that you will need to try to answer along the way? As your explorations take you, perhaps, in a variety of different directions, having a compelling set of essential and sub-essential questions can help you to maintain your focus.

Project log: Like essential and sub-essential questions, the project log is a piece of the project that can help tie everything else together. The log is your means to create and keep a record of what you do on your project. It will become a resource upon which you will draw, for example, when writing reflection papers and putting together your “evidence of research.”

Reflection papers: You will be writing two of these: one at roughly the halfway point of the year, and one at the end of the year. Both have roughly the same functions: to give you a chance to reflect upon how the process of your project is going/has gone; to consider alternative strategies; to articulate what you believe you are learning/have learned.

Application of knowledge: To take information or concepts or models from one context and apply them in a new context is a sign of learning that goes beyond the mechanical and the rote. It is part of meaningful problem solving and thinking. In what way will you use knowledge creatively? How will you make sense of information to make it meaningful to yourself? How will you use your project as a way to make something new from ideas, concepts, facts, and skills that you have already learned in school? Evidence of research, and research resources and methods: Doing research helps connect you to other people who have been thinking about some of the same questions and issues that you have been thinking about. Learning from others can help further your own journey of inquiry, especially if you continue to take responsibility for the lessons you draw from your sources. What resources have you identified, both academic (i.e., in traditional forms recognized by various disciplines, such as carefully researched and peer-reviewed books and articles), and “field” or less academic (such as interviews, observations), which you reasonably expect can help further your project? How do you judge the reliability and relevance of a source? Is a traditional “academic” style research paper (such as a history or English paper) the best way for you to convey what you have learned through research, or might you use another format more effectively?

Interdisciplinary connections: You will need to go beyond the boundaries of any single discipline in order to address your essential question well. Which disciplines have you identified as being central to your project? What specific elements of these disciplines do you plan on combining? What do you believe you will be able to learn and achieve by drawing upon multiple disciplines that you would not be able to achieve through a focus on a single discipline?

Community-based learning: If the experiences and lessons of your schooling seem irrelevant or unimportant beyond the world of the school, something is missing. It is important to get experience in making strong connections between these worlds. Have you identified any sites beyond school where you may be able, through observations, interviews, internships, apprenticeship, collaboration, or volunteer work, to further the goals of your project (that is, to help answer your essential questions)? What type or types of community-based learning do you think might be most helpful to you?

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Tangible product: In school, learning is often measured by tests and papers. "Projects" and "activities" often offer a wider scope for exploration and for giving other people a glimpse inside your mind. Consider what you might do and make to help further your understandings and to share your insights with other people. What reasons can you offer for your choice or consideration of particular types of tangible products? How does making the tangible product — be it a story, a piece of music, a design for a building or a park — help you to better answer your essential question(s), and to communicate those answers to others?

Presentation: No single component of your project is likely convey to others the complete experience of your journey. In a fairly brief presentation (15 - 25 minutes), you will provide an overview of your project, touching on all the components. Your presentation will be an invitation to your audience to share your journey — in a sense, to relive it with you. What can you do to tell the personal story of your exploration — your motivations, memorable moments, notable challenges and how you met them, and so on — in ways that are compelling to an audience? What are the most significant insights you wish to share with others? Are there creative ways in which you can help to engage your audience with your project and the kinds of questions you have tried to answer — ways to help persuade your audience to care about your project as much as you do? Keep in mind, by the way, that if your “tangible product” involves some sort of performance or a creative piece such as a CD of recordings or a film, you may well not have time to share the entire work with your audience during the formal presentation. Rather, you may be sharing just a sampling of your work with your audience at this time. Further arrangements for sharing such extended works with an audience beyond the class and your SCP teacher can be discussed on an individual basis.

A word about flexibility and the individuality and uniqueness of each project and student:

While all students will, through their projects, address all the project components discussed here, it is quite possible that not all students will give the different components the same relative importance. For instance, for one student, the community learning component might turn out to be the most exciting and enlightening part of the whole project. For another student, research might become the key aspect of the project. For one student, making interdisciplinary connections might be a challenge that really draws them in and engages their best efforts; another student might concentrate his/her efforts on making a tangible product. Your SCP teacher will try to allow for some flexibility, in the spirit of the course, in this regard.

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Step-by-Step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Schematic Guide

Note: While this guide attempts to give a chronological overview of the steps of the project, one must keep in mind that certain activities are impossible to pigeonhole in this way. Most significantly, note that the project log is an ongoing component, which students maintain for the majority of the year. Likewise, the timing of community-based learning and the making of interdisciplinary connections are impossible to specify by sequence or chronology. Some of the steps identified here correspond to specific due dates (see the Senior Culminating Project Portfolio Assessment Outline), while others do not and cannot.

The five themes: Seminars/Readings/Reflections(Concurrent with I, Ia, and II — first quarter):During the first quarter of the school year, we’ll be exploring, both individually through reading and reflection/writing and together through discussion, the five themes of the SCP course described a little further on in this handbook. We’ll be undertaking common readings, and you will be writing short reflection papers in which you look at how particular readings help to illuminate specific themes. At the same time, you will also be working (again, during the first quarter) on developing your project ideas and essential questions, and will be finding and making connections between your own developing project/questions and one or more of our five themes. You’ll describe these connections via very brief reflection papers.

I. The germ or kernel of a project idea: The student begins, perhaps, by identifying an area of inquiry ("I want to learn more about . . .") or an idea for something they want to do or make. It is possible that some students will start off on their journey with a very strong motivation to do an independent project of the general nature we are describing, but with no very specific project ideas.

Ia. The project log: The student begins keeping a project log at the very start of the school year. The nature of the log and its content will change as the year progresses. Early on, the log will include reflections about how the student's preliminary ideas and plans for the project are going. As the student begins to do research, the log will reflect this, incorporating specific notes on specific sources and ideas. Later in the year, the log will likely include thoughts about the tangible product and, eventually, about the presentation.

II. The development of a project idea using essential questions: The student develops an essential question(s) and sub-essential questions that grow out of/relate to the original project idea. In this process, the student begins to identify what s/he wishes to learn, and comes to understand better what really matters to him/her about the potential project.

III. The development of a plan for how to carry out the project: The student starts to determine how s/he can work to answer the essential question(s) in a meaningful way, with reference to the various project components: that is, thinking through what sorts of research, applications of knowledge, interdisciplinary work, community-based learning, and tangible product might be most helpful to undertake and to make.

IV. The beginning of research: The student identifies resources, both academic and non-academic (experiential or "field-based"), and carries out research to help answer essential and sub-essential questions.

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IVa. Community-based learning: The student identifies people, places, and activities beyond school that will afford him/her opportunities to further his/her understanding, to better answer the essential question. Community-based learning may grow out of an internship or volunteer job. It will probably give the student a good chance to do some less academic and less formal research: making observations, conducting interviews, etc. Some students may have identified community-based learning opportunities very early on in the process of doing their projects, and some may continue such activity outside the school until quite late in the process.

IVb. Interdisciplinary connections: The student continues to refine his/her understanding of how two or more disciplines help to inform his/her thinking about the project and the essential question(s).

V. The first reflection paper: The student writes a paper drawing upon his/her project logs. In this paper, the student reviews the learning process so far, identifies current strengths and weaknesses of the project, and thinks through possible changes of strategy and emphasis. This is the time and place for students to compare where they thought they were going with where they actually are, and to figure out what to do next based on that reflection. The student uses the essential question(s) to help focus their thinking about the project.

VI. The evidence of research: The student presents the evidence of his/her research either in a traditional "research paper" format or in a format better suited to the particular project. In either case, an annotated bibliography is a vital part of the evidence of research. This presentation of evidence should reflect the fact that the student has done both more and less "formal" or "academic" research.

VII. The tangible product: The student makes something tangible as a crucial step in answering the essential question(s). Note that the tangible product can be a piece of writing, even though the term "tangible product" implies something a bit more physical and concrete. The general intent behind this phrase is that the student will make something that will have meaning beyond the school setting in ways that a traditional test or paper may not.

VIII. The presentation: The student presents, within a limited time (15 -25 minutes) his/her project to an audience of peers, mentors, and community members. Presentations will touch upon all phases of the project, with emphasis on those components that were most crucial to the student's specific project. The presentation should bring the audience on a journey: Here's what I wanted to learn (and why I wanted to learn it) and to do, here are the questions I was trying to answer, here's what I did, and here are the answers I came up with in the process. The student will be prepared to answer constructive questions from the audience.

IX. The second (final) reflection paper: The student writes a paper drawing upon everything up to this point. Again, s/he uses the essential question(s) to help focus these reflections. Important components to consider in relation to the essential question(s) are the evidence of research, the tangible product, community-based learning, interdisciplinary connections, and the presentation.

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Step-by-Step Through the Senior Culminating Project: A Fanciful Example

I. "I will make a quilt."

Ia. An early project log entry might include some reflection about the process of developing an essential question relating to making a quilt. A later project log entry might discuss some sources of information on quilting, or might recount a conversation with a local quilter who has shared some technical tips and some stories, too.

II. Elsewhere in the handbook, we have included some examples of possible essential questions relating to quilting, e.g. "Is quilting more of an art or more of a craft?" "Why do most of us have the impression that quilting is 'women’s work'?" and "What role does iconography play in quilts and quilt-making?" The development of such questions will be guided in part by the interests of the student.

III. Let's say we decide to go with the essential question: "Why do most of us have the impression that quilting is 'women’s work'?" Our next step would be to figure out some of the ways in which trying to answer this question will allow and encourage us to address the various components laid out for all senior projects. To take a couple of examples: This particular question obviously requires doing some research. But how would the question relate to the making of a tangible product? Let's say we are still intent upon making a quilt. Perhaps we would consider trying to make a quilt that looks as though it were made by a man. In this way, our tangible product would have strong and direct connections to our essential question.

IV. In order to answer our question with some depth of thought, we probably have to undertake a couple of types of research. One fairly obvious sub-essential question is whether quilts actually have been made more often by women than by men. Another somewhat distinct question relates to how we have formed our contemporary ideas about gender and work: Are these ideas based on historical fact and tradition? Or do they come from other sources? The first question is more straightforward and factual: one would search for answers in the fields of history — perhaps social history and art or craft history, perhaps also archaeology and anthropology. The latter questions are trickier, having to do with attitudes and trying to figure out how people know, or think they know, things. At this point, we might want to do some interviewing of people in the community, both quilters and non-quilters, to try to explore attitudes and beliefs in contemporary society relating to quilts and gender.

Imagine that a female student is doing this project. She joins a quilting circle, which, it happens, is all-female (community-based learning). But she goes one step further: once she is an accepted member of the circle, she invites her boyfriend to join the circle. The reactions of the other members, and of her boyfriend, might give her great insights about contemporary attitudes about who — males or females — may acceptably do what. She might note specific reactions in her project log, and later draw upon these notes in her evidence of research.

V. In our first reflection paper, we note, among other things, that we have learned just how time-consuming making a quilt can be. We wonder whether the making of a quilt is really the best way to address our essential question. Should an actual quilt be our tangible product? Even though we are enjoying quilt-making, the pressure of completing a quilt that will look good and that will have any direct relationship to our essential question discourages us. On the other hand, we have started to think about ways to explore people's ideas about different kinds of craft and gender. Perhaps our tangible product could be a parody magazine, something like "Quilting for Men." This would give us a chance to

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explore, with some humor but also some serious thought, how an activity becomes part of a whole web of associations, including some relating to gender stereotypes.

VI. As evidence of research, we present an annotated bibliography of some research we've done in the field of material culture studies, along with some other research done by anthropologists. (We wanted to see whether gender stereotyping about quilting was just an American thing or whether it was evident in a range of different cultures.) We also present some notes from conversations that took place in the quilting circle, along with some comments we gathered from the participants in those conversations after the fact, when we shared our notes with them.

VII. Having gotten some assistance from our mentor as well as from a friend who is very handy with page layout and photo manipulation software, we create "Quilting for Men" as our tangible product. In our project log, we note some preliminary thoughts about the best way to present this magazine to a whole roomful of people when we make our presentation.

VIII. For our presentation, we explain our interest in quilting and how we got from there to the point of exploring gender stereotyping (exploring our development of our essential question). We project some images of the members of the quilting circle, along with examples of their work and some audio of typical conversations during quilting. As we discuss some of the gender-related attitudes that emerged in the circle, we weave in a brief mention or two of the lessons we learned from our research into material culture and anthropology. We take our audience through the experience of bringing a male into the quilting circle and exploring the consequences, and show how the idea of making a parody magazine developed from there. We present the magazine in three forms: 1. In a brief Powerpoint presentation, we show each page, pointing out particularly successful pieces. 2. We hand out black and white photocopies of the magazine. 3. We leave two full-color copies of the magazine up at our presentation table, for anyone interested in to take a look at after our presentation.

IX. In our reflection paper, we explore whether the process of making the presentation was a satisfying conclusion to our project. Did anyone ask surprising questions? Were people's reactions pretty much what we had expected? We also look back on the entire process. Did it make sense to shift as we did from a concentration on making a quilt to making a magazine? Did that shift help us to explore our essential question more fully? Was it frustrating still not to have made a quilt of which we are really proud? Would it have been better to have concentrated our efforts more fully into one area — quilting — rather than having to learn a lot of fairly unrelated skills related to making a magazine?

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Essential questions and five themes suggested by Neil Postman: The first quarter “seminars” and beyond

Before getting to an extended exploration of the components of senior project, we should take a good look at five themes that will preoccupy us for much of the first quarter of the year. The rational behind introducing these themes into the Senior Culminating Project course is, briefly, as follows: Many students in the first two years of the Project had significant difficulty making connections between a narrowly focused project and anything beyond that project. In addition, many students also struggled to perceive or explain what they hoped to learn or had learned in the process of their project. They had trouble formulating effective essential questions. The five themes we are now using as a springboard for all your projects are presented to help address these difficulties. In our limited experience up to this point, theses themes have triggered some very creative and productive thinking, and students have generally found many fruitful ways to connect their own project-related interests with one or more of the themes. Our serious and extended exploration of these five themes will also help to provide us all with a common language: you’ll find, over the course of the year, many interesting and productive connections between your project and those of other students through the themes.

Essential questions involve interdisciplinary connections, are relevant to a wide variety of people, cannot be answered once and for all but involve us in on-going inquiries, and evoke the passionate interest of the person asking them. Asking, and trying to answer, these sorts of questions is about trying to find and create meaning, and that is one of the activities that helps to define us as human beings.

When we ask of something — a story, a picture, a statement about a biological principle, a song — “what does that mean,” we are asking questions of fact or interpretation, or both. But the word has another sense, related to the idea (or feeling) of caring. Saying that something is meaningful to you is another way of saying that you care about it. In his book The End of Education, Neil Postman suggests that education — teaching and, even more importantly, learning — could be organized around the exploration of meaningful themes. He suggests and discusses five themes he feels might be among the more promising launching pads in the search to find and construct — dare I say it — meaningful meanings. Each of these themes is quite broad, but not so broad as to become meaningless. And each relates to conditions of our lives that matter to us. The themes Postman suggests are

-the spaceship earth-the fallen angel-the American experiment-the law of diversity-the word weavers/the world makers

What follows are relatively brief abstracts (summaries) of each of these five themes. You may note that I point out quite a few areas of connection and overlap between the various themes; I hope this proves more helpful than confusing. Note that anything in brackets [like this!] is an insertion by me into a quotation from Postman’s book.

Pardon the inclusion of my own elaborations, observations, and opinions as I tried to do what I hope each of you will also do: relate Postman’s ideas to your own knowledge, perspectives, and interests. As, or after, you read the summaries, please give some thought to how your current plans and ideas for your senior project might relate to any one (or more) of these themes.

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The Spaceship Earth

This narrative, or theme, centers on caring for the environment. Part of caring for the earth relates to learning about and taking care of one’s immediate surroundings. Caring (both in the sense of being emotionally attached to and in the sense of being a competent caretaker of) also stems from a sense of history and from some understanding of our place in the life of the earth and of our planet’s place in the universe. Postman proposes archaeology, astronomy, and anthropology as three often-marginalized disciplines (all fairly interdisciplinary in nature) that are central to the kinds of understandings and caring that he’s got in mind. With respect to astronomy, he mentions the compelling human stories of the astronomers who helped develop our understanding of the cosmos (in the process touching upon the theme of the fallen angel: constant revisions of error); elsewhere, he cites William James’s suggestion that any subject can be taught in a humanistic way by teaching it historically, again intersecting with some ideas that are more elaborated in the fallen angel metaphor: looking at how ideas develop as the outgrowth of people’s struggles and lives and the contexts in which they observe, describe, theorize, and make.

Postman argues eloquently that a primary task of the public school is to teach us how to live cooperatively with others; certainly, this particular theme, the spaceship earth, relates to the ideas of essential interconnectedness and mutual dependence.

The End of Education came out in 1995, a bit before global warming became quite the pressing issue it is now; Postman doesn’t mention it in his discussion here. Clearly, though, it is an outstanding example of an issue — a set of problems and questions — that are of vital concern to the planet, that we should be motivated to address ourselves and that we should be motivating students to learn about and act upon. It is an issue that demands an interdisciplinary approach. Addressing it seriously leads in some directions that overlap with Postman’s other themes. For instance, if we consider the history of how global warming has been presented to the public, and how the debates about scientific certainty have played out in public debate, we immediately confront questions about the nature of “truth claims” in different realms: If, for example, much of the evidence for global warming is statistical in nature, public misunderstandings of statistical arguments can easily be exploited by various parties. What is the nature of scientific consensus? Many people seem uneasy with this concept, perhaps because they never encountered it in school: they are accustomed to learning scientific facts, not to learning about how scientists confront problems, share and debate and try to marshall evidence for and against various models and theories. Under the heading of The Word Weavers/The World Makers [see much below], Postman advocates for the explicit and extensive study of how each discipline makes definitions, asks questions, and uses metaphors (which include scientific models). Global warming is an issue that not only demands an interdisciplinary approach within the sciences, but, obviously, beyond, as we try to get to grips with how to get our governments and businesses and other institutions to coordinate to take action. I think we are just beginning to get a sense of how complex this issue is. For example: Much of the early advertising/propaganda arguing against the reality of global warming (meaning human-caused global warming, really) was paid for by cigarette companies. They did this because their lawyers cautioned them against advertising solely on the subject of the purported harmlessness of cigarettes: rather, the lawyers counseled them to create umbrella foundations and to campaign on some other subject in addition to the controversial one of tobacco’s effects on health. And they just happened (?!) to choose global warming!

The Fallen Angel

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The purpose here is to refute the following set of attitudes: You come to school to learn important facts and truths, and it is not your business to know where they came from or how. It would also be a waste of time to burden you with the mistakes of those who thought they had discovered important truths or facts, only to be later proven wrong.

Postman suggests, with a twist on John Dewey’s aphorism “we learn by doing,” that we learn even more by failing — by continually failing and correcting our errors, on and on in a process without end. He asks: “Can you imagine a school organized around this principle — that whatever ideas we have, we are in some sense wrong?” Postman strongly implies that such a school would be highly effective and engaging.

Postman cites Henry Perkinson’s book The Possibilities of Error. Another relevant source is the book History in the Making, which places side by side retellings of various stories of American history culled from decades of textbooks, showing how the stories have been revised and rewritten. It is in the tradition of Lies My Teacher Told Me.) And to cite just one more of many other explorations of this theme, in Error and the Academic Self Seth Lerer argues “that the professionalization of literary study took shape through . . . encounters with the erroneous,” that error is “a defining mode of scholarly identity,” and also that those who err in the sense of wandering (being errant) — “émigrés, exiles, dissenters,” those who have been estranged from society in one way or another, — have been central to the formation of academic disciplines.

In Postman’s view, it is essential to accept human frailty and imperfection. In order to learn, we must make, recognize, and correct our mistakes. As soon as we become convinced that we have got the truth about something, we become closed to further learning. Postman further argues that the obsessive desire with perfection and with absolutes of any kind, including the desire to possess absolute understanding, are dangerous and inherently anti-humanistic.

The American Experiment

Postman writes of how, through fear of where encouragement of patriotism might lead, educators miss important opportunities. He suggests that the goal of “acquiring and/or deepening a love of one’s country” is indeed a worthy and important one. Specifically, he is suggesting that we engage ourselves and our students in “the story of America as a great experiment and as a center of continuous argument.” (Again, one can see how the various themes interrelate: “continuous argument” certainly echoes the metaphor of endless erring and correcting.)

Postman identifies four big questions (and shows how numerous questions spin off each of these). The questions, or experiments, America as a society and political/cultural entity embodies, are:

-Is it possible to have a coherent, stable culture that allows the greatest possible freedom of religious and political thought and expression?

-Is it possible to have a coherent, stable culture made up of people of different languages, religions, traditions, and races?

-Is it possible to provide a free public education for all citizens?

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-Is it possible to preserve the best of American traditions and social institutions while allowing uncontrolled technological development?

He suggests that “every teacher would have read the following documents and books: Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter, John Dewey’s Democracy and Education, John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” I might add a wonderful book from the late 1700s, one bridging colonial and revolutionary eras: Letters from an American Farmer, by Crevecoeur, which has very insightful — and prescient — observations about some of the ways in which human character may be influenced by environment, including geographical, political, social, and cultural conditions.

The Law of Diversity

The principle of diversity, writes Postman, distinguishing his aims from those of what he believes is a disastrously divisive “multi-cultural” approach, is a large, inclusive narrative that all students can believe in. “Whereas ethnic pride wants one to turn inward, toward the talents and accomplishments of one’s own group, diversity wants one to turn outward, toward the talents and accomplishments of all groups. Diversity is the story that tells of how our interactions with many kinds of people make us into what we are. It is a story strongly supported by the facts of human cultures. It does not usurp the function or authority of other social institutions. It does not undermine ethnic pride, but places one’s ethnicity in the context of our common culture. It helps to explain the past, give clarity to the present, and provide guidance for the future.”

Postman identifies four particularly notable expressions of cultural diversity: language, religion, custom, and art and artifacts.

Language:While he strongly advocates for the learning of foreign languages, he also suggests the study of the history of the English language: as he notes, “English is the most multicultural language on Earth, and anyone who speaks it is indebted to people all over the world.” “To study the history of the English language is, therefore, to study the history of English-speaking peoples, or vice versa, which is the way I think it might be done if we wish to stress the importance of cultural interactions.”

Religion (i.e., comparative religion):One reason to study religion “is that so much of our painting, music, architecture, literature, and science are intertwined with religion.” “Another reason is that the great religions are . . . the stories of how different people of different times and places have tried to achieve a sense of transcendence. . . . [T]hey are all largely concerned to answer the question, Why? Is it possible to be an educated person without having considered questions of why we are here and what is expected of us? And is it possible to consider these questions by ignoring the answers provided by religions? I think not, since religion may be defined as our attempt to give a total, integrated response to questions about the meaning of existence.” Another reason to study religion “is that by studying religion, our students can become acquainted with, first, the variety of ways people have offered to explain themselves and, second, the astonishing unity of their explanations.”

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Custom:Postman stresses that it’s all too easy and common to teach in a superficial manner about various “quaint” customs of faraway peoples. He wants teachers to engage with “aspects of culture that, in truth, are likely to make students uncomfortable.” Some fundamental questions which both anthropologists and sociologists grapple with (and Postman wishes to remind us that the study of custom can, as in sociology, be local as well as far-ranging) include: “How do the people of a particular culture communicate with one another? How do they define law, truth, intelligence? How do they educate their young? What roles do they assign to the sexes? How do they organize kinship? What authority do they respect? What role does their history play?”

Art and Artifacts:Postman begins his discussion by noting that there are multiple reasons for teaching the arts, and that he has little or no experience teaching arts as a way of helping students to understand a particular language of the arts (e.g., painting, architecture, music) “so that it may penetrate to their hearts.” Having noted that he will, therefore, not specifically be addressing some of the essential sorts of art education, he gets down to his main point: “We may give prominence to the arts because their subject matter offers the best evidence we have of the unity and continuity of human experience.” He goes on to suggest the study of museums as potentially both engaging and valuable for high school students. “I am referring to the study of museums — not only art museums but museums of all kinds; that is to say, we would broaden our view of art to include artifacts of various forms and meanings. Why such a subject? Because a museum is an answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be a human being? . . . Every museum gives only a partial answer. Each one makes an assertion about the nature of humanity — sometimes supporting and enriching one another’s claims but just as often contradicting one another.”

The World Weavers/The World Makers

Postman begins here by touching upon the idea of definitions. Rather than always talking about the definition of a word, he suggests, we should try talking about a definition of a word. “From the earliest grades through graduate school, students are given definitions and, with few exceptions, are not told whose definitions they are, for what purposes they were invented, and what alternative definitions might serve equally well. The result is that students come to believe that definitions are not invented; that they are not even human creations; that, in fact, they are — how shall I say it? — part of the natural world, like clouds, trees, stars.” There are obvious connections here to his earlier stress upon seeing how knowledge is created, sometimes through a process of failure and correction, as noted above. Postman then goes from the problem of definitions to that of questions: “There will be no disagreement, I think, to my saying that all the answers given to students are the end products of questions. Everything we know has its origin in questions. Questions, we might say, are the principal intellectual instruments available to human beings. Then how is it possible that no more than one in one hundred students has ever been exposed to an extended and systematic study of the art and science of question-asking?” (This question is extremely relevant as you work to formulate and refine your essential questions, making your own process of question-asking and answering the foundation of their activity.)

Postman then goes to the issue of metaphor, which is central in his view of humans as creatures who create thought through language, and who fashion entire worlds through that language — whether it be the language of a science, musical notes, images, or words. He sees metaphor not simply as a figure of speech to be glossed in English classes. “Yes, poets use metaphors to help us see and feel. But so do biologists, physicists, historians, linguists, and everyone else who is trying to say something about the

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world. A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception. Through metaphors, we see the world as one thing or another. Is light a wave or a particle? [Or both? Is that possible?] Are molecules like billiard balls or force fields. Is history unfolding according to some instructions of nature or a divine plan? Are our genes like information codes? Is a literary work like an architect’s blueprint or a mystery to be solved? Questions like these preoccupy scholars in every field. Do I exaggerate in saying that a student cannot understand what a subject is about without some understanding of the metaphors that are its foundation? I don’t think so. In fact, it has always astonished me that those who write about the subject of education do not pay sufficient attention to the role of metaphor in giving form to the subject. In failing to do so, they deprive those studying the subject of the opportunity to confront its basic assumptions. Is the human mind, for example, like a dark cavern (needing illumination)? A muscle (needing exercise)? A vessel (needing filling)? A lump of clay (needing shaping)? A garden (needing cultivation)? Or, as so many say today, is it like a computer that processes data? And what of students? Are they patients to be cared for? Troops to be disciplined? Sons and daughters to be nurtured? Personnel to be trained? Resources to be developed?” [Senior culminating project students: What metaphor would you like to create to describe yourself??!!]

Postman would argue that metaphors play a vital role in controlling our thinking. Metaphors, definitions, and questions, he asserts, “are three of the most potent elements with which human language constructs a worldview.” World making through language, he says, “is the story of how we make the world known to ourselves, and how we make ourselves known to the world.” He gives some examples of how simple verbs, such as to be or to have, convey important clues about the way we understand various phenomena. For instance, “We believe there are certain things people ‘have,’ certain things people ‘do,’ even certain things people ‘are.’ These beliefs do not necessarily reflect the structure of reality. They simply reflect an habitual way of talking about reality. In his book Erewhon, Samuel Butler depicted a society that lives according to the metaphors of my strange doctor [who said to a patient, “Well you’ve done a very nice case of arthritis here”] and strange judge [who told a bank robber, “You certainly have a bad case of criminality”]. There, illness is something people “do” and therefore have moral responsibility for [and I think you could make a case that contemporary society is veering towards this view, in some ways]; criminality is something you ‘have’ and therefore is quite beyond your control. Every legal system and every moral code is based on a set of assumptions about what people are, have, or do. And, I might add, any significant changes in law or morality are preceded by a reordering of how such metaphors are employed.”

Continuing in this vein, a bit further on Postman discusses how schools, by sometimes quantifying how much intelligence students have, promulgates models of intelligence and achievement that are harmful and counter-productive. “. . . [T]he assumption that smartness is something you have has led to such nonsensical terms as over- and underachievers. As I understand it, an overachiever is someone who doesn’t have much smartness but does a lot of smart things. An underachiever is someone who has a lot of smartness but does a lot of dumb things.”

Postman cites the following thinkers who looked at the question of how language shapes worldview: Aristotle, Plato, Locke, Kant, I. A. Richards, Benjamin Lee Whorf [whose “Whorfian hypothesis” is a staple of sociolinguistics], and Alfred Korzybski. Korzybski was puzzled by “why scientists could have such astonishing successes in discovering the mysteries of nature while, at the same time, the nonscientific community experienced appalling failure in its efforts to solve psychological, social, and political problems.” (Korzybyski was a trained mathematician and engineer, and served as an artillery officer in World War I: this experience triggered his questioning.) Korzybski, suggests Postman, is important for introducing the model of humans as “time-binders:” “[W]hile plants are ‘chemistry-binders’ and animals are ‘space-binders,’ humans, in addition to binding chemistry and space, also have

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the capacity to “accumulate knowledge from the past and communicate what we know to the future. Science-fiction writers need not strain invention in their search for interesting time-transporting machinery: We are the universe’s time machines.” Korzybski also analyzed another human capacity, which he called abstracting: “We give stability to our world only through our capacity to re-create it by ignoring differences and attending to similarities.” [I just came across an interesting example — I’m sure they are countless — in doing a bit of web research on metamerism. This term, which refers to many related phenomena, has to do with the fact that some colors, which are actually different from each other if we consider the physical wavelength components of the light by which they are comprised, but which look the same under some circumstances, will look different under other circumstances (i.e., under illumination from a different sort of light sources, say tungsten instead of flourescent). It is possible, for example, that two prints produced by two different printers (let’s say one inkjet and one pigment) will look identical under flourescent lighting, but that one will look more orange than the other when both are viewed in daylight. As one source noted, it is only because of metamerism — the phenomenon by which colors that are “in reality” (here best defined, I believe, as “according to measurements of spectral wavelength components”) different are actually perceived as being the same, that makes possible such things as painting and the widespread reproduction of paintings that look like the paintings (even though the inks used in the printed reproductions are nothing like, and have different physical characteristics than, the pigments used in the painting, and even though the pigments in paintings are nothing like, in some respects, the colors in nature they represent). In other words, metamerism is one variety of perceptual abstracting that allows us to perceive important similarities.] “Although we know that we cannot step into the ‘same’ river twice, abstracting allows us to act as if we can. We abstract at the neurological level, at the physiological level, at the perceptual level, at the verbal level . . . . An abstraction, to put it simply, is a kind of summary of what the world is like, a generalization about its structure.”

One of Postman’s concerns here is to remind us that “the world is not the way we see it.” He notes that “[b]y naming an event and categorizing it as a ‘thing,’ we create a vivid and more or less permanent map of what the world is like. But it is a curious map indeed. The word cup , for example, does not in fact denote anything that actually exists in the world. It is a concept, a summary of millions of particular things that have a similar look and function. . . . The critical point about our mapping of the world through language is that the symbols we use, whether patriotism and love or cups and spoons, are always at a considerable remove from the reality of the world itself. . . . Thus, we may conclude that humans live in two worlds — the world of events and things, and the world of words about events and things.

Regarding the literary critic and educator I. A. Richards’s work, Postman notes the usefulness of his idea that one should stress the purposive aspect of definitions. “ ‘We want to do something and a definition is a means of doing it,’ ” wrote Richards. Postman extends this basic premise, suggesting that the best way “to free our minds from the tyranny of definitions” is “to provide students . . . with alternative definitions of the important concepts with which they must deal in a subject. . . . [T]he fundamental question to ask of them [definitions] is not, Is this the real definition? or Is this the correct definition? but What purpose does the definition serve? That is, Who made it up and why?” [So, senior culminating project students, why do you think I have presented the definition of essential questions as I have done? Would you like to redefine that term?]

Postman also cites an example of Richards’s teaching dealing with metaphor. Richards split a class into groups. He asked each group to write a paragraph about language. Each group had to begin with a different metaphor. So, one group’s starting point was the metaphor “Language is like a river,” while

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another’s was “Language is like a tree,” and a third’s was “Language is like a building.” They then looked at how that controlling, initiating metaphor influenced the remainder of the paragraphs.

Postman’s final three suggestions for exploring the relationship between language and reality are as follows: 1. Read Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life. 2. Require that students of every subject “be taught, explicitly and systematically, the system of discourse that comprises the subject. . . . the structure of questions, the process of definition, and the role of metaphor . . . .” The language of each discipline has its own special tones and styles, to which attention should be paid. 3. Look at “the ways in which humans have extended their capacities to ‘bind’ time and control space.” Postman, here, is calling for technology education. He is forceful in distinguishing this from education which uses technology. Technology is ubiquitous, in schools as elsewhere. But Postman notes the widespread lack of teaching and learning about technology. “Does the average high school or college graduate know where the alphabet comes from, something of its development, and anything about its psychic and social effects? Does he or she know anything about illuminated manuscripts, about the origins of the printing press and its role in reshaping Western culture, about the origins of newspapers and magazines? Do our students know where clocks, telescopes, microscopes, X rays, and computers come from? Do they have any idea about how such technologies have changed the economic, social, and political life of Western culture? . . . [W]hy not have a subject in which students address such questions as these: How does information differ in symbolic form? How are ideographs different from letters? How are images different from words? Paintings from photographs? Speech from writing? . . . .” Postman later enumerates ten principles relating to technology education. Here, I’ll cite just the fifth, which may be one of the most profound of these ten principles: “Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything.” Finally, Postman suggests the following final examination for students studying technology: “Part I: Choose one pre-twentieth century technology — for example, the alphabet, the printing press, the telegraph, the factory — and indicate what were the main intellectual, social, political, and economic advantages of the technology, and why. Then indicate what were the main intellectual, social, political, and economic disadvantages of the technology, and why. Part II: Indicate, first, what you believe are or will be the main advantages of computer technology, and why; second, indicate what are or will be the main disadvantages of computer technology, and why.”

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Tentative Senior Culminating Project Assessment Outline (With Deadlines and Grade Weighting)

(This will be revised, differentiated for the various levels and for major/minor, and to reflect the introduction of five themes. The dates listed are outdated, but can help give you a sense of the pace and expectations until I provide updated deadlines. The weighting scheme is relatively tentative: expect changes.)

Work/experiences will include:

1st quarter weight

1. Essential Question/s, due early October 20%2. Reflection papers relating to themes various due dates TBA 30%3. Reflection papers linking theme(s) to your EQs/projecct plan

due shortly before end of quarter 20%4. Revised project proposal, due shortly before end of quarter 30%

2nd quarter

1. Project Log entries, due every two cycles 50%2. Reflection Paper #1, due early January 50%3. Documents, rough drafts, research, sketches, etc. ??

3rd quarter

1. Project Log entries, due every two cycles 40%2. Evidence of Research (incl. Annotated Bibliography), due mid-March 60%

[documents, rough drafts, research, sketches, etc]

4th quarter

1. Project Log entries, due every two cycles 10%2. Feedback or checklist from outside expert 10%3. Presentation (incl. tangible product), due early May (exact date TBD) 70%4. Final Reflection Paper, due end of quarter 10%

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Essential Questions: A Brief Primer

Note: “Essential questions”, in the context of schools, teaching, and learning, is a phrase with a particular history. “Essential questions” as an increasingly popular catchphrase grows out of the work of the Coalition of Essential Schools. The Coalition itself suggests using essential questions as a way to generate effective teaching and — especially — learning, and educators and schools associated with the Coalition have defined the concept. As the concept has been adopted and adapted by others, it has been modified and redefined. In this document, we have kept fairly close to the sense of “essential questions” used by the Coalition of Essential Schools. Please keep in mind, though, that the discussion has been tailored to our Bedford High School Senior Culminating Project.

Essential Questions

What are they? (characteristics) What are they good for? (purposes) How can essential questions be most effectively used? (strategies) How do essential questions relate to descriptions of activities (e.g., project proposals)? What distinguishes “better” and “worse” essential questions? (criteria) How can one person help another to develop and use their essential questions? (mentoring)

Essential questions have these characteristics:

Essential questions do not have a single correct answer. Rather, they are the sorts of questions to which different individuals will construct different answers. One might think of a musical analogy: a (written) musical score is a question that each performer or set of performers might answer slightly differently. In fact, the same performer(s), on different occasions, might choose to interpret the score somewhat differently, according to mood or to reflect a new insight or feeling. The photographer Ansel Adams, who was also a musician, suggested precisely this analogy to explain how he conceived of his own images: the negatives were the score, and on different occasions and at different times in his life, he would print (“peform”) those negatives very differently.

Answers to essential questions tend to be provisional rather than absolute and final. This is not to say that all answers to a particular essential question will be equally valid, valuable, or true: to the degree that one’s answer depends upon facts and reasoning, for example, an answer with a stronger basis in fact and constructed more logically may be a “better” answer.

However, because essential questions deal with values and perspectives as well as with facts and reasoning, different people can construct answers to a single essential question that vary but that all contribute something to a larger dialogue.

Essential questions generate inquiry; they lead to further questions and lead the questioner in new directions. Any answer to an essential question that draws narrowly upon only one strictly limited area of knowledge will, almost by definition, itself be overly narrow.

Essential questions have broad relevance to a range of people: they matter. Of course, not all essential questions will be equally interesting to all people. However, it is important that essential questions be constructed keeping in mind a sense of how the inquiry might be broadened or framed such that a variety of people will be engaged, will care about the answers to the questions, and will want to come up with their own answers.

Essential questions have these purposes:

Framing an inquiry in terms of essential questions emphasizes the making of connections:

between insights drawn from different disciplines between one’s identity as a learner in structured classes and one’s identity as a more self-directed

learner between a narrowly defined “project idea” or “activity” and broader concerns and

learning/thinking/exploration

Constructing and acting upon essential questions encourages exploration and the taking of personal responsibility for learning.

Essential questions encourage creativity, critical thinking, and reflection upon one’s motivations for doing and learning.

Developing essential questions can help people to see learning as an on-going and inherent part of life rather than as a separate enterprise that happens only in special places (schools) and at special times.

Essential questions can be used in these ways (strategies):

In the context of the culminating senior project, essential questions can be used as a tool to help address the various components of the project. The construction and use of essential questions is not intended as an additional hoop through which students must jump. Rather, the hope is that essential questions can help students to organize and advance their thinking and doing so that they will have a better chance of meeting all the learning goals defined for the project (e.g., in the course description in the Program of Studies).

Essential questions can serve as the jumping-off point for a series of subsidiary questions (“sub-essential questions”). Some of these subsidiary (more narrowly defined) questions may be more factual in nature, but this need not be true of all of them. Once a project is defined not only by “what I will do (or make)” but “what I wonder about,” it should be easier to generate more and better questions to help guide the process of doing and inquiring.

It is possible that, in the process of devising an essential question, along with sub-essential questions (questions that need to be answered in order to answer the essential question), a person might modify or even abandon a project idea. One might realize that the things one is most curious about can be better approached through a different sort of activity.

Essential questions are related to “project” ideas in these ways:

A project idea might be nothing more than a statement that “I will make such-and-such thing” or “I will do such-and-such activity.” However, full project proposals — as defined in the senior culminating project course — must address several components: application of knowledge; research resources/methods; interdisciplinary connections; community-based learning; and a tangible product. Essential questions are a tool for moving from a simple project idea to the point where one addresses all components of the project in a manner that feels organic and unified rather than scattershot and pieced-together.

By identifying an essential question or questions associated with a project or activity, a person is better able to communicate with others what is exciting and important about that project.

Similarly, constructing an essential question in support of a project or activity might help a person to clarify his/her own motivations and interests.

Framing a project in the context of an essential question can help to develop a rationale for the project.

Certain activities seem to contain within themselves their own motivations, whether or not those motivations are apparent to others. Thus: Why climb the mountain? Because it is there. Some activities seem self-evidently urgent in certain contexts. Think of the space race between the United States and the USSR in the 1960s: in the context of the Cold War and also in terms of technological, industrial, and social history, the conquest of space and the race to put a man on the moon proved incredibly compelling to a huge number of Americans. (It’s probably helpful to remember that John F. Kennedy overtly placed this immense goal and project in exactly that context, including his use of the metaphor of the frontier: after the conquest of the continent, Americans turned to space as the next logical frontier.) Even apparently compelling and seemingly self-evident and self-justifying goals and projects, however, are not necessarily worthy. It is important to communicate with others one’s motivations and thinking, and equally important to communicate with oneself about these matters.

Here is an example of an idea for an activity, followed by some possible essential questions that might flow from or relate to that activity. Do you find some questions more intriguing than others? Would some work better than others in the context of the requirements for the Senior Culminating Project? If so, why?

Activity/Project: “I will make a quilt.”

Tentative/possible essential questions:

What are the differences between an art and a craft?

Is quilting inherently a more communal activity than painting?

Is quilting more of an art or more of a craft? Is it important to make a distinction?

How do various traditions and kinds of quilting relate to each other?

Why have quilts recently been finding a place in museums of “fine” art? — and does this say more about shifting values in the art world or about changes in the practices and uses of quilting?

How do various kinds of quilting expertise get transmitted? In what ways does this process of knowledge transmission differ from that involved in “fine” arts such as painting and sculpture?

Do cultures or communities where quilting is an important activity have certain features in common?

Has quilting always been “women’s work”?

In what ways does traditional quilting practice relate to advanced science and technology in the areas of insulation, conductivity, and complex composite materials?

Project Log Expectations, Format, and Samples

The Project Log is possibly the most important aspect of your project. Why? It serves as an account of the process. It documents your learning, your progress, your research. It will help you think deeply about your project, possibly adjusting and reshaping as you go. It serves as a “rough draft” for your reflection paper/s. It serves as a means of communication between you, your mentor, and your coordinator.

Every time you work on your project, even if briefly, take notes and document what you do. You will able to use this information in the Project Log, in the Reflection Papers, and for your Annotated Bibliography!

Requirements for the Project Log

WHEN: Roughly every two cycles you are required to submit a substantive Project Log entry (or entries).This document should be typed and submitted to your SCP teacher, either as a print out or via email. Keep copies of log entries for yourself, too, whether on the BHS server or in another safe place!

WHAT: Format/Contents of Entries

Your log will tell the story of your project: your activities, your research, your ideas, and your learning. Entries will be evaluated according to four criteria:

clarity level of detail depth of reflection relevance/focus

The format of your entries is up to you. Here is a suggested method. You might structure your entries in two parts. The first part would be more of a narrative report, relating fairly straightforward information. In this section of an entry, you might answer questions such as these:

What were my goals for this part of the project?What did I do? Where did I go? (physically and electronically)What did I learn? How will I use new information?How will this new information help me reach my goal?What logistical problems need solving? Do I have any ideas as to how these problems can be solved?What do I do next?

In a second part (set off by a few spaces), you might write more reflectively in response to questions such as:

“Ah-ha” moments.What confused me? What was frustrating? What was good? Bad?What questions do I have? (for outside expert, for coordinator, for mentor, etc)Do I need to revise my work habits/schedule? What do I need help with now? Who can help me?How am I working with my mentor? How am I managing my time?Assess the quality of your work so far. Are you happy with it?Write about ideas for your presentation.

Note that your log should include your research notes! Rather than simply write in your log that you skimmed portions of some books or did some other form of research, include the notes themselves so that both you, later on,

and your teacher will be able to look at your log as a compendium of what you’re learning along the way. Include bibliographical data in your logs so that you don’t have to go back to hunt for it later!

Project Log Sample Entries

In order to give you a sense of what more and less useful log entries might look like, here are two contrasting made-up examples. (Note that we are sticking with the same hypothetical quilting project referred to elsewhere in this handbook, and that these two entries were not written by a student.)

Project Log Entry Sample #1 (not so good: very short on specifics!)

I got a lot done this week. I went to the library, looked at some books, then went online and saw a bazillion websites on quilts. I printed out some pictures of quilts, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them. My meeting with my mentor yesterday went okay; she had some good ideas about how to do the research part, but I have to think about it.

I sewed last night for about 30 minutes, but I had Calculus homework to do so I stopped. I guess I’d better work on finding my outside expert soon.

Project Log Entry Sample #2 (much, much better!)

I got a lot done this week. I went to the library and looked at these books:

Quilting: The Bee All and End All by Sally Stitchintime. 746.4 Sti [Would be even better to include full citation info.]

The first half of the book was mostly personal reminscences, the author remembering her Grandmother, but the second half has some interesting patterns and tips for beginning quilters. I learned that it is very important to pre-wash the fabric first so that there won’t be shrinkage and possible puckering after the quilt is washed for the first time.

I also learned about piecing from this book; apparently, there’s quite a bit of math involved! I will not only have to measure the pieces, but account for the seams and then of course the overall hem on all four sides! I guess this might be one “interdisciplinary” connection: geometry!!

Sew You Want to Make a Quilt… by Horatio Needlebutt 746.4 Nee

Horatio is a Master Quilter from Harrisburg, PA. His book is kind of like a step-by-step “how to” style book…kind of outdated. He suggests going to a “five and ten” to the “notions” department and I have no idea what that means. Anyway, he has a pretty good formula for figuring out how much fabric to get, but other than that this book won’t help me much.

I also found a few websites that will be helpful. I used “quilting for beginners” as my search term.

http://www.bhg.com/home/Quilting-for-Beginners.html

This site is sponsored by Better Homes and Gardens and it is a good guide to terms and techniques I will be using. There are a couple of ideas for beginners projects, including a “cozy comforter” that looks nice. I emailed the link to myself so I can look at it at home

http://www.quilt.com/Beginner/BeginnersGuide.html

This site had a list of materials needed, and a sort of “practice” activity. I don’t think I have time to do the practice stuff…I just want to get going on my quilt![etc]

I have come to realize that this is a big project to undertake. It’s not just the making of the quilt that I have to think about, but tying it in to other topics and subjects, and doing the research part. I came across some things in one of the books in the library that interested me, specifically when Sally Stitchintime was writing about her grandmother and her memories of quiltmaking in her grandmother’s home. I started to ask myself why I am so interested in quilts. My Nana had a quilt hanging in her bedroom on the wall, which I thought was weird when I was a kid. It should be on the bed, right? Anyway, she used to tell stories about that quilt, how her grandmother had brought it north from Georgia during the war (which war, I wondered) and that it was made to tell a story. I

wondered if there were other quilts that told stories about families, etc. I still feel that I don’t quite have a single question to tie my interests together, but I think I’m getting there: something about how the stories people tell through “crafts” like quilting relates to the history we read in books . . .

Evidence of Research

Here are the basic requirements and elements to keep in mind when conducting research for your project and when working on putting the results of that research into a form you can share with others (details follow):

I. Explain how your research helps you to better answer your essential question. How does your research support the purpose(s) of your project?

II. Your research should have both formal (traditional academic: based on books, articles, etc.) and informal (less academic: based on experiences, interviews, observations, etc.) components.

III. Provide an annotated bibliography of your research. All citations should conform to MLA standards, and all research and sources, both formal and informal, should be properly documented and identified.

IV. Use research as a way of both answering questions and generating new questions. While maintaining your focus on one or more essential questions, remain open to finding new questions for exploration along the way. Each answer has the seeds of new questions. Some new questions may help enrich your understanding of your original essential question(s).

V. Be creative and imaginative in presenting evidence of your research. So long as it addresses the elements noted above, your evidence of research can take whatever form you decide will be most appropriate and engaging.

I. Formal and informal research

All senior project students must incorporate both “formal” and “informal” research into their project. By formal we mean more or less academic research. This is generally research that has been conducted and written up in accordance with specific protocols and that has undergone some form of “peer review.” That is, it conforms to standards that have been agreed upon by a body of “experts.” Informal research, while it may not meet these criteria, may often be equally, or even more, valuable. It typically includes such things as personal experiences, conversations, observations, and interviews. The line between formal and informal research is not always clear or distinct. Much can depend upon the specifics of a situation. For instance, social scientists often conduct types of interviews — e.g., longitudinal studies, for which they may ask a set group of people the same questions on several different occasions (e.g., before, during, and after an experience)— in ways designed to make the results at least appear (?!) to have greater weight and validity than one might lend to interviews conducted in a more casual and haphazard manner.

II. The relationship between your research and the purposes of your project

Simply in order to make something you have never made before, or to do an unfamiliar activity, you almost always need to answer some questions, get some new pieces of information. Add to this the fact that you will be organizing your project around one or more essential questions which you are trying to address, and the need for research becomes obvious. Some of your research might relate to very practical and down-to-earth details, “how-to” kind of information, while other research might relate more to the abstract and generalizing side of your project, helping you to answer the “big-picture” questions. Some of your research might provide very specific and definite answers, while other research might give you a general sense of things, or might just give you a sense of the range of

opinions on a subject. Some of your research might fit neatly into a disciplinary category (e.g., history or math), while other research might be hard to classify at all in terms of traditional disciplines. What all your research should have in common is that it relates, in some way, to the main purposes of your project. When presenting evidence of your research, describe these relationships. Which types and pieces of research did you find most helpful in achieving your aims, and why?

You may well have to grapple with how much credence and weight to give different kinds of evidence and research. In the process, you may even ask whether “formal” and “informal”, as categories of research, are somewhat artificial (e.g., since both rely, at some points/levels, on similar basic sensory inputs). Asking such questions may help you to become a better evaluator of evidence, more astute and critical in making such judgments.

III. Annotated bibliography

An annotated bibliography includes the usual citation information, properly formatted. But, in addition to this, it includes commentary on the sources. There are numerous variations on this basic idea of a bibliography with commentary, and annotated bibliographies may be created with widely varying degrees of detail. For instance, some such documents merely offer a phrase or two characterizing the nature of each source and giving it a sort of rating, e.g., on its degree and kind of usefulness. On the other hand, some annotated bibliographies offer virtually an abstract or capsule summary of each work. If a student wishes to put a great deal of effort into this latter type of annotated bibliography, the bibliography itself might well comprise the greater part of the evidence of research.

Whether your annotated bibliography is this extensive or not, it will, at a minimum, provide the reader a sense of how each source related to your attempts to answer your essential and sub-essential question(s).How have your research sources influenced your thinking about your questions, and in what ways have they influenced the direction of the project as a whole?

Your annotated bibliography will include both formal and informal sources of information.

IV. Research as a self-renewing process of inquiry

Research can take many forms, but it’s perhaps helpful to think of it, most broadly speaking, as activity undertaken in order to help answer questions. One of the things that makes research interesting is that new questions keep popping up. If this does not happen, everything comes to a grinding halt. Therefore, we propose that all research presentations should follow the basic format:

Questions Answers More Questions

1. Describe some of the questions with which you began.2. Present some of the answers — including (especially?) tentative and/or problematic ones — that you arrived at.3. Describe some of the new questions that arose from these answers (and perhaps also just in the general course of doing research).

An important element of #2 involves presenting, not simply answers, but details about how you arrived at those answers. What were you looking at/listening to/doing/feeling? How were you making sense of those experiences? What standards of judgment (e.g., to determine whether a certain type or piece of evidence was valid, or whether a certain method of interpretation would be relevant and useful) did you borrow from other people, and which did you work out on your own?

V. Creative and imaginative presentation of evidence of research

Because students will be engaged in a wide variety of projects, and because none will fit neatly within a single discipline, it does not make sense to impose or propose a single model, a single way for students to provide evidence of their research. Given the nature of schooling, the likeliest disciplines to offer models for a “research paper” would probably be social science and English. But it’s important to recognize that people engaged in other pursuits also conduct research, even if they sometimes call it something else. A student’s lab report is evidence of a certain kind of research, just as it is when a scientist presents an article, based on both a survey of current scientific thinking regarding a certain issue and on his/her new experimentation and/or analysis and/or observations related to that issue. Walden presents Henry David Thoreau’s research into questions about what it would be like to live more-or-less on his own for a span of time; again, this is an interesting example because his book incorporates not only his own “direct” experiences but his experience of reading many other thinkers: Walden is full of quotes from.

Imagine a musician who carries out a great deal of research into various historical performance styles and does other scholarly (and non-scholarly?) work in order to recreate a piece of very old music in as “authentic” a manner as possible. Is the performance of the piece in and of itself the “research presentation”? Probably not. We would want, in addition to hearing the piece, to know about the research process itself: what kinds of investigative and analytic tools does someone (e.g., a musicologist) doing this type of work use, and what are some of the different ways those tools can be used? But the form this presentation might take would probably not be the same as the form used by a historian, or by a literary scholar, or by a mathematician relating how s/he proved a theorem in a manner somewhat different from those of previous mathematicians.

Try to bring the same creativity and sense of exploration to your presentation of evidence of research as you will bring, for example, to your work on a tangible product. Conducting and presenting the results of research can be a creative as well as an intellectual process. This extends even to details that may seem quite mundane, such as the question of what order to put a series of quotations in. By placing bits of evidence in well-considered juxtaposition, you can actually present a sophisticated argument.

Interdisciplinary Connections

What We Are Asking You To Do: An Overview

As part of the senior culminating project, we are asking you to make interdisciplinary connections. To help clarify the nature and purpose of this request, it might help to answer the question: "What is the nature of disciplines and disciplinary inquiry?" Below, a four-component definition of disciplines is proposed. The four components are interrelated. One way to think about this challenge is to consider various ways of combining these disciplinary components (methods, purposes, content, and form: see below) from at least two disciplines. So, for example, you might borrow some specific content from one discipline and combine it with the methods of another discipline.

Evaluating the degree to which specific borrowings and combinations are appropriate and productive is a very tricky question, one that must be addressed on a case-by-case basis. But, as a general rule, we encourage you to be both creative and daring (on the one hand) and reflective and thoughtful (on the other) in making these connections. That is, don't be afraid to suggest or to try out a certain combination. But think hard about whether the connections you are making between disciplines seem to do justice to the individual disciplines. If, in making connections, you feel you are distorting the original sources of your insights, or are being superficial, then there may be cause for concern. If, in making connections, you feel you are deepening and building upon disciplinary insights and furthering your exploration of an essential question, you are probably on the right track. To sum up, here are two guiding principles/questions we will all try to apply and put into practice when making and considering interdisciplinary connections: 1. Does the making of interdisciplinary connections grow naturally and logically out of the search to answer an essential question(s)? 2. Have you (the student) demonstrated an awareness of the type of interdisciplinary connections or borrowing you have made, and have you thought carefully about your choices?

"Subject" Or "Discipline"?

Many of us are much more familiar with the term "subject" than with the term "discipline." Students take courses in specific subjects, such as U.S. History, or French, or Algebra, or Ceramics, and so forth. Are these subjects also disciplines? Leaving this question aside for, let's say for the moment that the distinctions between various disciplines are analogous to the distinctions between various subjects. Your familiarity with the notion of different subjects will, therefore, help you understand the notion of different disciplines.

A Brief And Simplified (Oversimplified?) Four-Part Definition of "Disciplines"

Each discipline has four components:

1. Methods2. Purposes 3. Content or knowledge 4. Form or language

1. Methods: These are the ways, generally accepted within a particular discipline, of generating knowledge and reaching understandings. To give a few grossly oversimplified examples: Archaeologists learn, in part, by

digging and analyzing what they find and where they find it; literary scholars learn, in part, by careful reading, analysis, and comparison of written texts, and they keep certain critical frameworks (particular kinds and sets of questions) in mind when doing all this; chemists learn, in part, by isolating and combining various elements as well as by drawing inferences from the results of experimentation; some artists learn, in part, by paying a great deal of focused attention to various optical/visual qualities of the everyday things they see. While some artists use chemicals, while archaeologists sometimes apply critical frameworks, while some chemists might actually do some digging, and so forth, all of us would recognize certain configurations as somewhat surprising or odd. That is, we expect a literary scholar to do a great deal of reading, writing, and quiet thinking; we expect to find a chemist in a lab or perhaps analyzing data with the aid of a computer or working out some equations, and so forth. In this sense, we closely associate methods with certain types of activities.

2. Purposes: Each discipline has its own somewhat unique purposes or goals: things it is good for, types of questions it can answer. Again oversimplifying to make a point, science aims at understanding the natural, physical world and its many phenomena and properties. In our contemporary way of understanding it, science is "objective" and deals with things that are really there, regardless of what we may think or feel about them. Through its allied technologies, science aims also at controlling the physical world, or at least limited parts of it. By way of contrast, one of the purposes of art is to increase our understandings of ourselves, of our inner worlds. Art also explores questions about what is beautiful and what is ugly, and allows us to look at why we feel as we do about many things. Some might say that one purpose of art is to mediate between inner (subjective) reality and outer (objective) reality. We might do well to remember that the distinction we so forcefully and habitually make, between objectivity and subjectivity, is not a distinction that people have always made. Similarly, we might consider the purposes with which pre-historic cave paintings were made. If some of the people who made these paintings hoped to control the course of events — for example, to help ensure a successful hunt — were they acting as scientists or as artists? All this is simply to suggest that the purposes of the disciplines — like much else about them — are not static; they change and evolve over time. Note: One way in which disciplines change is by being brought together in various combinations.

3. Content or knowledge: Each discipline has and is, in part, defined by a body of knowledge: facts, theories, models, and insights upon which new work is based. This base of knowledge is, naturally, related to both the methods and purposes of the discipline. Often, we will be much more familiar with this aspect of a discipline that with others. We may know lots of specific historical data without really understanding much about how that data has been gathered. But, if we are at all thoughtful and reflective, we will have wondered at least a bit about how the historian came to be certain of the things s/he tells us.

4. Form or language: Each discipline possesses well-recognized and accepted ways of expressing and conveying knowledge. At the most mundane level, one might consider the distinctions between a conversation a student of a foreign language takes part in to both increase and demonstrate mastery and fluency and, by way of contrast, the carefully documented research report a history student writes in order, again, both to gain and demonstrate mastery within that discipline.

Criteria for Presentation

-Engage the audience. Make eye contact. Aim for fluency. Know the essence of what you want to say so well that you can improvise. Vary inflection and the pitch of your voice appropriately to reinforce what you are saying. Avoid jargon and explain unfamiliar terms in “plain English.” Be alert for cues from the audience — for example, looks of confusion on several faces could be a hint that you should try to re-explain what you have just said.

-Present the story of the project. Tell the audience about your motivations and experiences. You have just been on a journey; try to give your audience a sense of what that journey was like and what made it worthwhile.

-Time and organize the presentation effectively to help keep the audience alert and interested and to facilitate logistics. (Time range: 15 – 25 minutes) A student who incorporates a brief hands-on activity for the audience into the presentation may be able to hold the audience’s attention longer and may tend towards the longer end of the time range.

-Structure the presentation to reflect the relative importance of various elements of the project. For instance, if the tangible product turned out to be incredibly important as the element that brought everything else together, be sure to allow sufficient time in presenting it. Your presentation should pay at least a bit of attention to all the major components of the senior project.

-Creatively address different senses (e.g., vision and hearing) and different learning styles. This does not mean that everyone has to do a Powerpoint presentation or any other particular sort of multi-media extravaganza. But some use of visual and aural (and other?) aids is highly encouraged. Create points of entry, or “hooks”, for people with a variety of interests and ways of taking in new information and ideas. This could be accomplished in a variety of ways – for example, by using language to create strong visual and aural impressions, or by combining an anecdotal approach with abstract analysis.

-Encourage your audience to take a journey similar to your own, and give them a sense of what the next stage of your journey might be. Let the audience know how they can find out more about the various pieces of your project. For instance, you could provide a sheet with information, including references, your annotated bibliography, and similar materials; you could have a presentation table with examples of your work or reprints of articles you found helpful or photos of the places where you served an internship. You might suggest some of the new directions for further explanation you now see. You could note unanswered questions, and new questions which have arisen out of the process of working on your project.

Contract

I have read the handbook for the Senior Culminating Project. I understand my role and responsibilities as described in the handbook, as well as the roles of others with whom I will be working. I understand and agree that I bear the ultimate responsibility for the project. This responsibility includes:

proper documentation of all sources and help received adherence to deadlines thoughtful and active engagement with all components of the course, including the first quarter theme-

related readings, reflections, and seminars respectful and appropriate interactions with helpers

___________________________________________Name of student (Please print, type, or write legibly

____________________________________________Signature of student

_________________Date

Suggested general format for a letter/email to a potential “outside expert”

Date

Dear ________,

I am a senior at Bedford High School and I am taking part in a pilot program being offered this year called the Senior Project. This program allows students to choose a topic of personal interest and study it in-depth.

Research is a major requirement of this project. I am writing to you because

- I have found through my researchor- I received your name from ______ _______ who informed me

that you have expertise in XYZ. The topic of my project is _______________.

At this time I was wondering if I could interview you as my outside expert. I'd like to make it as easy for you as possible, and promise not to take up too much of your time. If a telephone interview, or email correspondence, rather than an in-person meeting would be more convenient for you, I would be happy to arrange that.

If you are willing to allow me to interview you, or if you have any further suggestions for me, please contact me at either

(H) 781 _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ [best time to get me is after ___- o’clock] oremail @ whatever . com

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

_________ __________

Differentiating levels 3, 4, and 5

As indicated in the Program of Studies, Senior Culminating Project is being offered at three levels. While each student chooses a level when signing up for the course, s/he may also change levels in the fall if necessary. That’s important to keep in mind, because the differences between levels may not become fully clear, or you may not be able to decide on the extent of the commitment you wish to make, until we get into the process a bit and you get a fuller understanding of what the various components of the project really entail. Switching levels won’t create any scheduling problems, because all the levels will be scheduled together anyway — so deciding to go from level 3 to 4, for example, will not affect the time of the course or the composition of the class. So: don’t agonize too much about this decision!

The primary means we’ll use to differentiate the levels will be by the number of components of the project that are required. Some variation in expectations regarding the depth and rigor with which various components are addressed will also help to differentiate the levels.

There are seven major components for senior culminating project: 1) application of knowledge; 2) interdisciplinary connections; 3) academic and field research; 4) reflective writing (including, but not limited to, a project log); 5) a tangible product; 6) a live presentation of the project; 7) a written defense of the project. Level 5 senior project students will fully address all seven components, while level 4 and level 3 students will have progressively more leeway or freedom to choose between certain of the components. The precise configuration may change a bit, but it will look something like this:

1) Application of knowledge – required for all three levels

2) Interdisciplinary connections – required for levels 4 and 5; optional for level 3

3) Academic and field research – both academic and field research required for level 5; levels 4 and 3 students may choose one or the other type of research

4) Reflective writing — required for all three levels, but with variable expectations (relating to depth of reflection, level of detail, frequency of log entries, etc.) for the different levels

5) Tangible product — required for levels 4 and 5; optional for level 3

6) Live presentation of project — required for all three levels

7) Written defense — required for levels 4 and 5; optional for level 3

As you’ll notice, for students taking senior culminating project at level 3, three components of the project are optional. Those students will be required to do at least one of those three optional components: some choice is involved. Note: The development and use of essential questions is a pervasive feature of this course, and students at all levels will work to develop and use essential questions as an integral part of the project.

Further differentiations:

-Students taking the course in level 5 will take some responsibility in leading our “seminar” discussions of readings relating to our five seminar themes. Level 4 students will take lesser responsibility.

-Students taking the course in level 5 will take greater responsibility for finding and articulating connections: a) between their project and one or more of our seminar themes; b) between other students’ projects and the seminar themes.

Other specific differentiations will be discussed in relation to assignments/assessments as we go.

Differentiating major and minor

In addition to your choice of level 3, 4, or 5, you can also choose whether to take Senior Culminating Project as either a major or a minor. Students taking this course as a major need to be aware that half your scheduled class meetings (every other class meeting) falls during a time when your SCP teacher is either teaching another course or has a prep period. These periods give you time to work independently. You need to check in with the teacher at the beginning of the period, for official attendance periods, but will then generally be free to work on your own. If you need to work in a special location, including one of the specialized rooms at BHS (e.g., a computer or music tech lab, etc.), make arrangement for the use of that space ahead of time. If your work needs to occur off-campus, make appropriate arrangements and inform your SCP teacher ahead of time in detail about the purposes of such work and the logistics of your off-campus travel and work.

In general, the differentiations between major and minor involve the ambition and scope of your project and such elements as the length, number, and degree of detail of your log entires, reflection papers, evidence of research, and so forth. Details will be provided as appropriate over the course of the year. Looking well ahead, while the length of the live presentation is the same for both majors and minors (twenty minutes), the projects completed by majors should certainly be larger in scope. This means that these students will need to be more efficient and selective as they organize their final presentations.

One significant major/minor differentiation that you’ll see early in the year is that majors will be required to find additional readings relating to both their own project idea and to one or more of our seminar themes.

Each major will be required to locate an “expert” in his/her area of interest and to effectively draw upon that expertise in some way, whether that be via email or traditional correspondence, in-person discussion or observation or interning, video-conferencing, or other reasonable means. The extent of documentation of this process will be differentiated by levels.

A final overall note on level and major/minor differentiation:

Some of the distinctions discussed in this section are rather precise and technical. Your teacher, in discussion with you, will try to be flexible with the actual application of these guidelines, to help fit them to your individual strengths, needs, and the nature of your inquiry/project.