Final Novel Projects

So we've been working on the students' final novel projects for the past few days. I introduced the projects with a powerpoint and gave them a handout. In talking to Mr. Conrad, I decided to have the students write proposals that outlined their ideas and if they required classtime or equipment, and asked them to suggest a preferred manner of grading. Then I created a rubric with categories that combined my students' suggestions with my own ideas (Connection to Novel, Creativity, Visual Aids, ect). The project was worth 40 points total, but I allowed the students to move points around in order to weight certain categories in their favor. I thought the category weighting was a great idea initially, but after grading the projects, I realized that it didn't really help out their project grades. For example, a student might have weighted his project in the Visual Aids category because he didn't think the project was very creative, but it used a powerpoint so was therefore highly visual. This should have worked in his favor if the powerpoint was well done (In theory, he would lose no points in that category), but often students put a lot of points into a category that they had completed, but not very well. So in my example, that students ended up losing more points for a poorly completed visual aid rather than one or two for having an uncreative project. Anyway, another case of good intentions leading to overly complicated assignments.

So I definitely would have changed the grading system, but I would also include more directive instructions. In debriefing with Mr. Conrad, we discussed the struggle of having wide-open assignments that allow students to explore creative options for assignment completion, versus giving students concrete expectations and opportunities for success. I would like to strike a balance between those two goals, and I think this assignment landed too close to "wide open" on that spectrum and didn't provide enough structure. I know that the quality of some projects was beyond my control, but I feel like a few more models and concrete instructions would have facilitated more students' success. I am also worried that the assignment was so open-ended that I have not taught them to DO anything. They already know how to read and make posters, etc. I'm worried that beyond "connecting with the novel" there is no justification for why they did this project.