Why I have Implemented Project-Based Learning

I had all but given up on being a high school English Language Arts (ELA) teacher by second semester last year. Student behavior was the worst I had encountered in my ten years of teaching. Students were socially immature and lagging academically from the previous two years of online and hybrid education. They did not remember, it seemed, how to carry themselves appropriately in a group of their peers, much less how to speak to an adult without being disrespectful. They were jaded by online assignments but not yet sure how to learn in person. Large numbers of students (even honors students!) were turning in work late if they were turning it in at all. The apathy and exhaustion of students and staff was palpable. I was disconsolate. 

I was tired of the new online curriculum. It was shallow, with short vignettes from obscure pieces of literature. It was confusing, with answers to multiple-choice questions worded so strangely that I found myself having to double-check the "correct" answers. And, it was somehow cold, with students demonstrating very little interest in anything they were assigned through the program. I was desperate. 

My graduate classes offered some solace, giving me the opportunity to interact with my content in a way that kept my fire burning when everything about my work atmosphere seemed determined to stamp it out. I relished the opportunity to be creative through writing once again--something I had not realized was a large part of my becoming a teacher in the first place. I was beginning to seriously consider the rationale behind the work we ELA teachers were being asked to assign. It did not seem to be challenging students. It seemed unable to engage them at all. I was at a breaking point.

When the second semester of last school year rolled around, and I was at the most desperate point in my teaching career, I knew that I had to make changes to what I was doing. Though I was supposed to use what had been provided by the school, I could no longer bring myself to do it. Students were not enjoying ELA, and they were not learning.

As a final project for ENG 625: Composition Theory Seminar during the Fall 2022 semester, I had created curriculum for a hypothetical research project for college freshmen. I foresaw myself pulling up the file someday when I worked as an instructor at a community college to utilize as a blueprint for a semester-long syllabus for an entry-level course. I was proud of what I had created, but I had originally not seen any immediate application for the project.

With the impending second semester causing me great anxiety, I made a choice. I decided to use the college curriculum I had created for the third quarter of my Honors Language Arts 10 course. The honors sophomore students were constantly asking why they had to do or learn something that was part of the online curriculum, and I did not always feel as though I could answer their questions honestly without admitting that I, too, felt that much of what we were doing in class was pointless. It was a problem. I saw the individual research projects as a solution. Students would have the chance to choose for themselves what they wanted to learn about. I would teach them about the tools they would need to find credible sources and utilize them effectively to complete academic research.

Even though I knew that the first implementation of such curriculum would be messy and would be a lot more work than the canned curriculum I had been using, I dived in, and so did the kids. Initially, it felt strange to allow students so much time to work without direct instruction from a teacher, but they absolutely thrived. Students who had turned in few assignments up to that point in the class gave presentations on topics with incredible intricacy and astounding clarity. Many students reflected at the project’s end that it had been life-changing for them.

One student completed and published a novel he had been working on since his 8^th grade year. Another student created a healthy lifestyle plan after researching diet and exercise that changed his entire physique when he applied it to his own life. Yet another student led a Socratic Seminar about abortion rights and managed to keep it civil. My faith in education had been restored.

At this time, I have begun Implementation 2.0 of the Quarter 3 Research Project with my honors sophomore students. I have made changes to the original curriculum based on my observations and student input from last year. My goal through this blog is to document the process of teaching the unit, including reasoning based on scholarly research that has helped me determine instruction methods and grading philosophy. I hope to be able to share assignment instructions and rubrics I have created as well as summaries for class activities and commentary on their success or lack thereof. I also hope to include student input.

I call the blog “Leffers’ Lessons” not only because I hope to teach my students lessons through this project that will help them become lifelong learners, but also because I know that I will learn my own lessons as a teacher and as a human along the way. Students are (ironically?) the best teachers.