This summer grant was finalized along with my colleagues in Spanish and Mandarin. We made the decision to meet in person for one day, and to discuss the project remotely for the second day. This provided more scheduling flexibility for us, given that we all had separate calendars for the summer vacation.
As of Fall 2022, the Art and World Language departments had already established a Famous Women’s Project to be completed in the Spring of the 6th grade year. This project was conducted in both classes, and entailed researching, writing, and recording themselves in the foreign language, followed by embroidering the face of their famous woman.
I implemented this project in Spring 2023, and found it difficult for my 6th grade French students to complete. This difficulty was due to a lack of in-language resources on famous women, as well as the fact that 6th grade language students had not yet learned to speak or write in the past tense. Additionally, the idea of writing 8-10 complete sentences in French proved to be a bit daunting for students.
As a department, we made the decision to move this project to the spring of the 8th grade year, and use it as a summative assessment for students to showcase the vocabulary and grammar they’ve learned over their 4 years of language study at Burke’s. We would provide access to authentic resources for completing the research, as well as more scaffolding for the writing process. We would also spend more time working on pronunciation with students, in order to smooth out the recording process. We additionally planned to shorten the in-class time used for the project and integrate it more into the spring trimester timeline, as opposed to having it cross over between both the winter and spring trimesters.
While working on this project, I have come to a few important realizations. Firstly, regardless of how long a curriculum has been in place, it is always in need of revamping and revision. Secondly, the process of modifying curriculum is much easier and more enjoyable when doing it with my colleagues. I have appreciated the time we’ve spent together on this project and am excited to be able to put it into place for the Spring 2025 trimester.