The Design
Process:
1. Review the
challenge: After a series of history lessons on the issues listed above and the
Progressive Era, students will be told that their table group will now form
their own society. They must develop their own laws (manifesto) on the issues
we’ve been studying, a name for their society, a flag, and ultimately a kind of
advertisement highlighting the benefits of their society and intending to
attract others to move there. They also must complete a diagram or a model of
what their society/town will look like.
2. Students will begin
by reviewing their history notes and making a list of all the issues they will
need to decide upon and address in their manifesto. (Important note: students
will not be allowed to form a “utopia”. They will not be able to magically fix
all problems - instead they must debate and rank the issues in terms of
importance to their society, and all solutions must be historically plausible.)
3. Groups are given
the Society Project Planning Sheet while we go over the steps of the
assignment.
(Note: The first part
of the design process will mostly be focused on the issues leading to their
manifesto, i.e. application of historical content.)
4. Investigate: After
receiving their assignment, students will be guided through a deeper discovery
process in order to gather information on their top four selected issues.
Resources will include classroom texts, textbooks, articles and Web sites.
Teacher will model in the beginning and will provide a worksheet (Society
Project Organizer) to help students find what would be most important in
understanding the issue as a whole.
5. With the new focus
of forming their own societies, students will ask themselves a series of
questions (ex: What do we do about immigration? What do we do about child labor
vs. the cost of skilled laborers? Etc.).
6. Frame the Problem:
After the allotted time for research, students will hold a discussion with
their group around the questions:
Did we correctly
identify the top four issues that we would like to address in our society?
- How has our researched
added to our understanding?
- What do we still need
to know?
- What types of ideals
are immerging as representative to our society (ex: peace, freedom of
expression, equal rights)?
(Note: At this point,
student groups will begin to brainstorm both their solutions to their chosen
issues and their representative ideals of their society {name, images, etc.}.)
7. Generate Possible
Solutions: Students will brainstorm possible solutions to the challenge by
discussing ways they could solve the issues in their society. We refer to these
solutions as resolutions. At first, no idea is too crazy, even though one of
the design constraints is to keep it historically plausible. (Note: This
generation of ideas will begin in class and then be a homework assignment, which
will be discussed and shared the next day.) Brainstorm can take the form of a
list, a drawing, diagram, or a written narrative. Quantity will be emphasized.
Students will also brainstorm names for the society based on the immerging
ideals they are trying to establish in their manifesto.
8. Editing and
Developing Idea: Teacher will help the students to narrow down their ideas by
reminding them of the constraints (no utopian societies, historically
plausible). This will be done by using one group’s Society Project as a model
and posing questions to troubleshoot and determine its historical plausibility.
9. After interviewing
the example group, students will then meet in their own groups and make final
decisions on their manifesto. By now they should have finished their research
and be ready to move on to designing the name, flag, layout of the town and
advertisement. Students will choose two to three different ideas to develop
though writing, sketching, diagramming, or modeling.
10. Sharing and
Evaluating: Students will be partnered with another group to briefly share
their ideas about their flag, name, layout and advertisement. Teacher will
model this briefly and provide specific guiding questions for groups to ask
each other. The goals are to provide excellent feedback, to be receptive to
peer’s comments, and to utilize the best of those comments to improve their
work.
11. Finalize:
Students make a final decision on their society’s name.
12. Then, they will
choose one theme to focus on and develop that idea further. At this point they
will decide who among the group will take on the following tasks: sketching the
town layout or building the town as a model, writing the manifesto which
addresses all the issues and solutions, constructing the flag, and completing
the advertisement (this can take on many forms). One of these tasks may have
two people working on it.
(Note: The last step should be a few days later so that
students have time to work on their presentations and finalize their individual
parts of the project.)
13. Articulate: As a
final step, students turn in a complete society project with all the components
listed above. Societies will present their ideas to the class and the class
will help the teacher determine which societies best met the challenge.