Can't vs. Won't

"Kids do well if they can."  An interesting philosophy adopted by Dr. Ross Greene, author of several books on behavior and associate professor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard University and one that challenged the core of my personal educational philosophy.  I was researching student-motivation for my IRC Conference presentation in March when I ran across this article in the Phi Delta Kappan written by Dr. Greene in 2008.  In this article, he presents the idea that if a child truly has every skill it takes to perform a task at a particular time, he or she will, indeed, follow through.  At first thought, many educators would squint our eyes, wrinkle our brows, and say, "Well, what about those kids who don't want to?"  Right?  But after reading through Dr. Greene's article with examples and explanation, not only do I support this statement, but I realize that it both supports and contradicts my entire educational philosophy.

Dr. Greene starts out by stating the alternative thought - Kids do well if they want to, and he challenges his readers to decide which philosophy they would prefer to follow.  Most of us would say that the difference in implication for both statements is pretty profound.

"Kids do well if they can" vs. "Kids do well if they want to."

"Can't" vs. "Won't".  A very respected colleague of mine uses this simple thought with some of her most challenging kiddos who show potential to swing one way or another.  Those kids who have made so much progress and then fall back and then move forward for a few weeks and then fall back for a month - the ones who appear as if they can do it, but they are "just unmotivated" (a common thought among educators).

Our first response is to say to ourselves, "What can I do to motivate this child?"  I can tell you, friends, that motivating our kiddos has been such a passion of mine for the almost-three-years I have been at this job.  But there are times when I collapse at my desk, put my head in my hands, and cry because I just can't seem to make some of them care.  WHY can't I figure it out?

Dr. Greene presented me with the idea that there is only one answer to this - when a child chooses not to do something, when a child chooses behavior we consider to be unacceptable, when a child chooses blatantly inappropriate behavior, there is a skill that he is missing and that he can be taught.  When we choose to approach the behavior (and this includes work ethic) from the top (rewarding good behavior or hard work with external rewards such as tangible items or grades or punishing undesirable behavior), the desired behavior is never taught, and the likelihood that the student will learn it and internalize it is not high.

Adversely, there are some struggling students who are motivated by grades and rewards.  These are the kiddos who work so hard to "make the grade" or get the reward, but when you take a look at their actual skill acquisition, often times these kiddos continue to exhibit low skill.  When the rewards are removed, they may or may not be able to exhibit the correct behavior, probably will choose not to, and if they do, there is no meaning behind it.  These are the kids who are the first to ask, "What do we get if we do it?"  Most of our kiddos, right?

Greene's eight page article focused more on behavior than it did to academics and was obviously more in-depth than my quick summary, but the idea is the same.  When I walk into our intervention language arts class, when I walk into an intervention SLC class, when I look at the detention list, when I look at the D-F list, when I look at the kiddos who get suspended most often, the kiddos who come up at our Tier 2/3 meetings, my "below the twenty-fifth percentile" list - who do I see?  The same kids over and over and over and over again.  Why is this?

And this is when I started making the alignment between what Dr. Greene says in this article to the RtI (Response to Intervention) model that we are currently using.  RtI spans both academics and behavior.  We currently work to catch our academic strugglers with our benchmarking tests (we use Scantron Performance Series and AIMSWEB) with the hope that we can service these kiddos before they become unmotivated, but at the middle school level, some of them have not known success for years and (as I have stated in previous posts) find it much easier to refuse to do it and deflect attention by misbehaving than to try and fail again.  Their egos have had enough.  Many of these strugglers have already hit that threshold and have stopped trying.

My job as a reading specialist is to identify the issues, and (holy smoke!) there are a lot!  Our PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention System) team's job is to identify the issues of our students with inappropriate behavior and provide supports for these students as well.  Unfortunately, we have the same exact problem - we have seven hundred students, and each one comes with his own recipe!  I've tried and tried and tried to be prescriptive for each, individual student, but as Dr. Greene points out - screening tests will often give us general information, but some of our kiddos will go their entire academic careers with skill deficits that never get resolved because we don't have a way of "collecting the data" on them.  And the skill sets are vast!  We also see that often students have social skill deficits that distract them from making academic gains (things like having difficulty empathizing with others' point-of-view), so no matter how much academic intervention we give, until we can identify their social skill deficits we watch some of our kiddos move from sixth to seventh to eighth grade, make a little and lose a lot and make a little and lose a lot.  Its devastating to watch, and I am sick when we ship them off to high school.  Sometimes we manage to qualify them for an IEP, and sometimes not, but regardless - I feel like I could have done more.

As usual, the big question then becomes: So what?  What now?  What can we do?  How can we work with this new philosophy, keep our current curriculum moving, and address these needs?

• Do not ignore students who appear unmotivated.  Dr. Greene is emphatic when he states that these students CAN if they have skills needed.  If we ignore those who refuse to do what we ask, we are missing out on an opportunity to teach a skill that could change a life.  Bring this student up to whomever will listen, and don't rest until somebody takes action!
• Carry on, but keep a culture of trust and support in your classroom.  
• Communicate with your colleagues about students who struggle or act out in your class.  If yours is the only class, its time to keep track of when the negative behaviors are occurring.  If you find that the student is struggling in more than one class, start a conversation about the situations that cause the student the most problems.  You may find that there is a very quick and easy solution, or you might solicit the advice of an administrator, dean, social worker, reading specialist, or speech path.
• Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
• Pay attention all the time.  Academic issues may be masked by acting out and social issues may be causing a lag in academics.  Take note on trends or difficult situations.
• Plan engaging activities and don't leave room for down time.  Change scenery at least twice in a period.  An unmotivated student's favorite time to act out is when there is down time or when she has been doing something above her skill set for too long.  Keep her going with social, active, thought-provoking lessons - and don't give her a chance to think about whether she wants to do it or not.  
• Let your strugglers know that you care.  Whatever that looks like to you.  We had an issue with a very tough kiddo in the late fall who was on his way out because he was spending demerits like they were on his lunch card.  One "come-to-Jesus" meeting with the Tier 3 team, some of his most devoted and caring teachers, and his Mama - and we haven't really heard a peep from him since then. And the meeting wasn't a, "you'd better shape up, pal, or you're outa here!" kind of meeting.  It was a "how lucky you are to have your mom show up to your meeting and look at all of these teachers here who care and support you" kind of meeting.  A few quick and simple rules on a behavior plan, and he was good to go.  He's not our star student, by any means, but what a difference it makes when we could start identifying his needs!

Finally, consider approaching all unmotivated students with the idea that their difficulties are caused by a skill deficit somewhere and watch as your attitude changes about them.  As I was dealing with my ten-year-old daughter this evening, Greene's words rang in my head, and I could feel my energy shift.  Although her issues are anger and anxiety and not motivation, the premise of the feeling is still the same, and it seemed easier to work through with her knowing that there were skills that she needed to master, and I would have to be her teacher (not her disciplinarian).  It didn't go exactly as I had hoped, but we still have another eight years before she can legally walk out on me, so perhaps in that time I will get it right.  In the mean time, practice makes perfect, and we will all be better educators for at least considering the idea that kids do well if they can.

September 20 Crumble - Today's Homework: Study

Years ago when I had the opportunity to visit the four middle schools on a regular basis in support of the CRISS initiative at the middle school level, we conducted a survey with the students.  Part of that survey uncovered things that students felt they didn’t know and wanted to learn – and the top request was instruction in study-skills.  Our kids didn’t, and still don’t, know how to study.  At the end of my work that year, we re-surveyed the students, and, even after the year of inundating them with strategies, they were still asking to be taught how to study.

Part of this is our fault, as educators.  We give them study guides and practice tests that they use as their study tools, and they feel as if they complete these tasks, they have studied.  But is that half hour spent on the study guide a few nights before the test a great study strategy?  For some, maybe.  For most of our kiddos, however, constant, repeated exposure to the material is what is going to make a difference for them, and that is what the 12-Minute-Study is all about. 

Remember that these kiddos have an attention span that lasts about as many minutes as years they've been in school - so we're talking that the average seventh grader has the attention span of about seven minutes before he zones.  We can totally make this work, as long as we carefully plan and give our students ideas for studying instead of telling them that they must do this study guide or these practice questions.  Our ultimate goal is to create independent learners, and in order to do this we need to give them tools that they can use to prepare themselves. 

Just like with our formative assessments, studying can and should be done in small chunks.  So if you have a quiz or test coming up in a week, start these kiddos out on a study regiment, just like an exercise regiment.  Give a seventh grader the challenge of studying seven minutes at the beginning of your class each day that week and then seven minutes at home.  Yes, that's right.  I said seven minutes.  So that's fourteen minutes a day.  If they study all week, that's four days at fourteen minutes . . . you're looking at a good hour of studying for a short assessment.  If you're planning a huge unit test, you have a relatively good idea when that test will be, so start the kids out a few weeks before the test.  Or better yet, from the beginning!  Studying doesn't have to, and probably shouldn't, be for just a test.  It should become part of their academic lives.

So how does it work?  It's simple:

• Each day of the Seven Minute (or Six or Eight) Study Challenge, begin class immediately with a quick study tip.  For example: "Look at the notes we took as a class and make up questions in your head that might be answered with the notes.  Try it with a partner now, and then tonight for the study challenge try it by yourself." 
• Then give an example, and set the timer for seven minutes. 
• Tell partners to go back and forth with making up questions and answering them.  The challenge is to do it for exactly seven minutes.
• Challenge students to give it a shot at night.  You could have them use a study log to log whether they did it.  They could even staple that log to their test, and you could compare the scores of the students who studied to those who didn't as part of the reflection after the test.  Share this information with your students!

So what else can students do during this Study Challenge?

• They can use flashcards to see how quickly they can get through them, and then they can race themselves using a timer (or stopwatch because everybody and their brother has a phone with a stopwatch on it now).
• Instead of going over vocabulary words, tell them to read the definitions and then give the word.
• Students can make up sentences using vocabulary and just say them out loud.  Writing takes too much time in seven minutes.
• Ask students to listen to their favorite song while studying and see if they can put the notes to the music.  Guaranteed any kid who can do this will certainly get whatever part she put to music perfectly on that test.
• Ask students to draw quick pictures of some notes.
• Have them read the notes out loud.
• Ask students to go back to the text book section and match the illustrations to their notes.  Then have them think of reasons why those illustrations probably go with those notes.
• If there are lists of things that students need to have memorized, ask them to think of great mnemonic devices to share in class the next day.
• Ask students to read a section of their notes and then close their eyes to visualize what it might look like.  Then do it with the next section.
• Ask students to think about the notes from the perspective of somebody else (maybe somebody from the notes?).
• Ask students to write a quick letter to somebody ridiculous (like Superman or Sponge Bob)using as many of the vocabulary words as possible . . . correctly.

There are so many possibilities with studying, and what we need to emphasize with our kiddos is that they need to find out what is going to work best for them.  Some people actually find that recopying notes helps them remember them!  Well, have at it then!  What we want is for them to find out what works and go to it when the stakes are high.  We also want to empower them to have an open mind to try new things, as well, so that they can increase their shopping cart of good study-strategies.

Happy studying, friends!

September 13 Crumble - Purpose Setting - the key to engaging our students

I have a ten-year-old who doesn't like to read.  But every once in a great while I can't get her head out of a book.  It's at those times when I look at her and ask myself, "What is different about this time, and why is she making the choice to read?"  In her case, eighty-percent of the time it is a non-fiction book that has captured her with a picture that made her go, "What's that!"  And at her age she knows that she will find the answer inside. 

So how can we transfer this type of behavior to our classrooms?  One of Project CRISS's Principles and Philosophies is Purpose Setting - but we're not just talking about telling kiddos why they're doing what they're doing.  Purpose setting comes in all sizes and shapes - including the "sneaky-teacher" ways of getting kids interested.  Here are some ideas to get your students motivated to read, learn, and participate.

• Play a video related to your content (YouTube, United Streaming, DVD clip) that is not too long (6-8 minutes max) - something that is edgy or entertaining, and maybe evokes emotion.  After the video, ask students to write observations and reactions.  Give them a sentence frame if you think it will help.  Expect them to give details about their observations and reactions. Have students discuss and share their thoughts and then have them ask questions about it. You now have the beginnings of purpose (their questions).
• Use music.  Kids love music.  Many of them write, and if you approach their lessons in a way that breaks down their own music or allows them to understand what goes INTO writing it, those with a musical inclination are more likely to participate.  Is there music that relates to the topic at hand?  I'm not talking a song about the scientific method or the fifty states, but music that somehow connects to the topic at hand.  You make the connections for them initially.  Have them observe and ask questions. 
• Google Images is, hands down, one of the most fun places to go when you're curious about something.  Why not use it to gather some attention and show images that related to something in the lesson before giving the lesson and see if you can get kids to react to it.  So how does your topic of study connect to students' lives TODAY?  Find some images.  Have students write and discuss their observations and reactions and . . . you guessed it - ask questions!

In the three general ideas listed above, there are some commonalities that I'd like to point out, and then I'll let you take it from there. 

• Get the kids thinking about the topic before they learn.
• Engage them in something other than reading or talking (viewing, listening, or playing).
• Require them to observe, write, and react.
• From those observations, require them to ask thoughtful questions.  The questions asked can be used to drive your instruction or not - but a good educator can easily find the balance between what the kids want to know and the stuff that we're being told is important. 

It's not tough - in fact, I find that our purpose setting activities can be the most fun part of the lesson because it requires students to express themselves.  This is the beauty of middle school!  They're just learning to express themselves - their viewpoints and opinions, and yet we don't have to reel them in too much.  You can learn so much from just talking to your kiddos, and who knows?  Maybe what you learn from them is a new way to look at the topic! 

Time for reflection - May 17 Crumble

The year is ending, and classrooms are beginning to look empty.  This last week I had a group of five eighth grade girls ransack my office and pack up books, photographs, and supplies.  They just showed up one day at lunch, and, like a band of hungry vultures, pecked my office clean.  Then they had the nerve to show up the next day and complain because I had unpacked some of my boxes so that I could do my job for the next two weeks!  I have some nerve, I know.  I love middle schoolers.  Sincerely. 

This week I've felt a little revitalized, and I thought I'd give the area of metacognition a good shake down as we all prepare to take off our educator hats for at least a few weeks and rest.  As many of us know, reflection is such a key component in becoming a better anything, and there is no better way to know oneself as an educator than to reflect upon oneself as a learner and a person.

One of the foundations of Project CRISS is a skill called metacognition, which many of you know means thinking about one's own thinking.  How do I, as a learner, learn?  I almost think that this reflection is more important for teachers than it is for students because, cognitively, these kiddos are still in stages where they haven't got a clue how they learn and are looking for us to supply them with those answers.  If we can't show them our confidence in our ability to detect our own learning styles, then how can we show them how to explore theirs?

Several years ago I conducted a refresher geared toward learning styles, and it's been a while since I preached that sermon, but I recall one revelation that many of us had after we all took the VARK learning styles assessment together and a multiple intelligences assessment.  It was like light bulbs went on all over the library as we started sharing our learning strengths with each other!  After I took those tests, I realized why I get frustrated when I sit in lectures or when somebody tries to tell me how to play a game.  My auditory listening skills stink, and I tune out after the first few instructions. 

But something even more amazing happened that day.  My ability to connect to my colleagues expanded because I was able to identify each person by his/her learning style.  I also began to notice that we bring those styles into our interactions with others.  Anybody ever notice me staring at your hair or interrupting a lengthy conversation with a completely new one?  Yep.  It's because my ears have shut down.  I don't mean to do it.  I am a better emailer and texter than I am a face-to-face conversationalist - and it's not because I like to hide behind my computer and my phone.  It's because I can't focus on my ears for too long.  Knowing this about my colleagues made it easier for me to communicate because if I knew I was working with a person who was kinesthetic - I showed them how to do something rather than type them out an email with directions. 

It even made a difference in my relationship with my husband - who is completely kinesthetic.  My strengths are my read/write ability and my musical/rhythmic ability.  Instead of frustrating him with lengthy instructions about things, I try to show him.  This is a challenge for me, as I produce better with my words, but to improve our (already amazing) relationship this is what I do.  With my daughter (the technology and visual girl) it is even more of a challenge, but I am learning.

My point is, friends, if we are willing to put forth the effort in creating engaging and meaningful lessons geared toward the highly-rigorous Common Core Standards, we have to be willing to go all the way.  Our kids will meet us with what they have to offer, but if their brains aren't wired for what we're giving them - good luck!  You can rebuttle this with the idea that as they get older learning isn't going to be geared toward their intelligences, and that they need to learn how to adapt - if you want, but the fact remains - we have these kiddos now.  Our job is to pack them with confidence, skill, and the ability to learn without being directed.  What better way to do this than to empower them with the idea that their way of learning may be different than others and by giving them ideas to adapt that way to today's education.

Metacognitive Journals and Paragraph Frames - May 10 Crumble

Well, it took about twenty-four hours for our extreme reluctant readers and writers to become disenchanted with the blogging we had started last week.  Once we started pushing the idea that our kiddos needed to shelve the text-speak and try to write academically - a few went right back to irritation and frustration - even with the technology.  What a disappointment this was for us, but I have to keep reminding myself that there is a large group who seem to be getting better and better.  The technology and the blogging are really motivating.

"Why are we doing this?" came from one of our loudest in the back.  I cringed.  We knew if one was asking that there were more wondering.  And yet as soon as we began reading the next chapter of Unwind, most of their eyes were glued onto the page and their ears were perked up, waiting to hear whether Connor, Risa, and Lev were going to be caught and unwound.

How could we get them to stop and process, comprehend, and write?  It was Monday when I woke up thinking about Metacognitive journals.  For years I've been asking my students to read and write, read and write.  I usually give students a list of prompts and ask them to choose:

• This reminds me of . . .
• Summarize the selection read in twenty words or less.
• I disagree with . . .
• I was surprised by . . .
• Predict what will happen next . . .
• Describe one character.

For each of the above prompts, students were always required to write a paragraph.  Some of them did; many of them didn't, and it took a lot of training to get them to add details and evidence to support their thoughts.  With our current group of readers, things are no different.  We gave them some ideas for blogging, and they answered the questions.  And that is all.  What was worse was the lack of care in spelling and punctuation, making some blog posts almost unreadable.  Our kiddos are so used to their word processors, phones, and tablets correcting spelling, punctuation, and (sometimes) grammar that the use of these skills is not even close to automatic to them. 

But Monday's brain-child came with a flash-back of a Project CRISS strategy that I use sparingly and only with struggling and resistant writers: the paragraph frame.  I had completely forgotten about this useful tool until last week, and I immediately went to work putting together a list for blogs.  Some examples are:

• ________ wanted __________, but ____________.  So, __________________.  Then _____________. 

• When ______________________ happened, it reminded me of __________________.  The situations are alike in that _______________________.  I also think that _______________________.

• I disagree with ____________________'s choice to ____________.  I thought it was wrong because ______________________.  I also think ______________________.

The idea of each of the above "frames" is that the student will pull it up on a Word document from the shared folder and fill in the blanks, taking care not to erase any punctuation but erasing all blank lines.  Once it is filled in, the student can copy and paste it directly into his/her blog. 

Interestingly, we ended up having some students who preferred to fill in the frame on paper.  I actually leaned more toward this technique, myself, because once the students filled in their frames, they had to go in and type the entire thing into the blog - including correct capitalization and punctuation.  This gave the students the experience of correctly typing into their blog, and then they were able to see how nicely it looked once they published!  The blogs were much easier to read, and when we asked the kids about how they liked the frames, most of them said they thought it was much easier.  They also completed the frames in a much shorter time than the other blogs. 

My thought about why the students preferred the frames is because these particular students struggle so much with writing that they cannot focus on the skill of writing AND the content in any reasonable amount of time.  Giving them the outline of what the paragraph should look like and starting out their sentences gave them direction and focus so that the technical stuff was done, and they could focus on the content - all the while still giving them the experience of creating a coherent paragraph.

The idea of the frames is to start out the year giving your struggling and resistant writers a clearly written frame where students supply only the ideas necessary.  As the year moves forward, you can expect more and more to come from the student and provide less and less of the frame.  Paragraph frames can't be used once a quarter if we want to see our students write independently, however.  Using them once a week and across the curriculum will give our struggling and resistant writers consistent experience in writing that will only make them stronger in the end.

Have caution, however.  Proficient writers may resist the use of these frames.  If you want to use the frames for your strugglers, consider making a sheet with whatever frame(s) you want to use and distributing it to specific students or giving the entire class the "choice" to use them.  Then you can stop by individual desks or tables and ask or require specific students to give the assignment a shot using the frames. 

I was thrilled with the end results of our first blog using the paragraph frames this last week, and many of the students seemed almost relieved to use them.  I'd like to see this type of writing used more across the curriculum as we increase the rigor and expectations for reading and writing for all of our students - including our strugglers. 

Social Studies inquiry - April 19 Crumble

As our seventh graders continued work on their biography projects this week, and I have moved into the eighth grade social studies classes.  I touch base with our biography-readers, and I've even been able to talk one into using Haiku Deck for his presentation rather than Power Point.  Unfortunately, after I got him started, I realized he can only access it on an iPad, but the project looks great!  This would be a nice app to use on our iPad cart, and it started me thinking about the possibility of checking out iPads from the library here.  It would have been great to allow him to do that for this project!  He seems to be enjoying it - partly because its on iPad and partly because it's cool and different.  Once he is finished, I will blog it so you can see the ease of this app.

So I spent most of my week with eighth graders.  Eighth graders have been given the task of creating a social history scrapbook to hit research targets for CCSS.  The project, itself, is big, but the entire task is really colossal - not unmanageable for a two-week project - but a big shock to our eighth graders.  Again, I am seeing an interesting phenomenon - the same trend that I saw with our seventh graders.  Give the kids a task (with good direction) and leave them alone.  They will do their best to complete the task. 

This is what has occured so far:

• Students were given directive on the entire project, including being given a grading rubric that included specifics on the final project as well as specifics on the expectations on the process.  All targets were aligned with Common Core Standards and explained at length.  I will touch on this again below, so keep this bullet point in mind.
• Students were also given direct instruction on citing sources by our Library Media Specialist.  She uses a spiral system where student expectations for citing increase sixth through eighth grade.  During this insruction each student (while working in pairs) also had an opportunity to try their hand at typing out a full citation in MLA style before being expected to write one on their own for the project. 
• Students were then given instruction on how to use the Q-Chart.  This time, instead of having students write their questions on the chart, they wrote them in their three-column-note sheet before they began their research.  The Q-Chart was used, then, to keep track of what types of questions they were asking.  Students were directed to put a check mark on the chart and try to spread out their question types so that they use a variety of questions.
• Finally, students were instructed to look for their topics and answers.

I am quite pleased with the process.  For three years we have been working on a functioning research technique, and we are getting to a point where we have one that we like.  As with everything, however, changes can be made to differentiate and make this an even more efficient procedure. 

I wish I had thought about conducting a mini-lesson on text features like I had done with the seventh grade biography-readers.  Not all of our students needed this, but a majority of them had trouble picking out main topics or even understanding that they should have main topics for their research.  They needed to have four influential people, four historical events, four science and technology breakthroughs, and four parts of daily life plus some other research.  Some students just started writing a bunch of questions about historical events, and their research was slim.  Once we sat with individual students and explained how to make their social studies text book work for them (use the timeline for important dates and the Important words and people at the beginning of each section to come up with influential people), some of them took off and never looked back!  I'm even wondering if perhaps I could have taken a group of the struggling readers off to a separate section of the library and worked with them on this task.  They were supposed to use their social studies text book to give them ideas for what to research in the era that they chose.  The picture below shows how some of the students organized their notes.  They were pretty extensive!

Another thing I wish I had done to differentiate for our students with higher skill level is to possibly pull them off and explain to them that the question-asking process might seem tedious to them because they sometimes skip that part and go right to finding answers.  Sometimes the answers come faster than the questions, so we were able to suggest to some of our kids that if they find information they want to include but have no question for it, include it and do a "jeopardy" - come up with the question afterwards. 

Something that our eight grade social studies teacher and I discussed a bit is the idea that when I am working with our struggling readers in small groups or one-on-one, they struggle so much with the texts we use for research - even when given a purpose for reading.  I found myself reading a paragraph out loud and stopping to paraphrase every few sentences (and looking up pictures online) because I would read and then ask if there were answers in what I read, and they would just stare at me with their eyes wide in the deer-in-headlights way.  One student, in particular, had self-awareness enough to be able to communicate that he had no idea what it was reading - even after chunking it into a few sentences at a time.  Why would this be?  Blam!  It hit me again.  I started breaking up sentences for them, and there were sometimes one out of every five words that I had to define!  Our kiddos need more words!

Some things that I am learning through this process:

• Come up with some ways to communicate expectations over and over again.  Going over the packet at the beginning creates an overwhelming sensation with the kids that causes them to tune out and focus on one thing: when is it due?  I think that, if I can work on this project again next year, I might suggest creating a website with expectations laid out along with pictures of what pages should look like.  That way the teacher can direct students to the website and continue to emphasize how things should look.  Using a blog or Google sites would work just fine for this. 
• Make a bigger effort to identify students who may struggle, and communicate better with the teacher so that we have a plan for these kiddos.  We had a surface plan early-on and identified the kids who would need help and modification, but I feel like I could have done a better job with support to them. 
• Identify checkpoints in the project for those who struggle with organization and reading.  Stick with those checkpoints.
• Know that I will be doing a lot of reading and paraphrasing to keep struggling readers on track with everybody else or modify the assignment even more than we had so that they can feel more independent with it.  By eighth grade I want them to feel a sense of accomplishment without having to have their hands held by anybody. 
• Be prepared to spend some time after school and during lunch with those who are panicking.  We allowed the kids to come in during the second week, but I'm wondering if perhaps I should have insisted that the struggling readers come in both weeks.  I noticed that after working with some the first few days one-on-one, they were asking to come in during lunch, PE, music, and any other class to work on their project.  I'm guessing if I had set aside 3 mornings where the kids worked from 8:45 until lunch I would have had a few takers.  By the last day, they're all panicking - except those who asked to come in early-on.

This project has been a hard wake-up call for many of our eighth graders, but it is something they needed to experience as they prepare to become freshmen.  I'm praying that they all take it seriously over the weekend and finish it because it is out of our hands after today.  I have heard rumors of large quantities of students from our school descending upon public libraries this weekend to create and print.  I hope the library has stocked upon their paper!  But this project has also reminded me of my love for research, and it makes me want to get some projects going on an ongoing basis next year (partly because I don't want to have everybody doing their research in April next year and partly because I haven't had this much fun in a while!), so start thinking of some ideas and ways that I can be used to support you in your planning and execution of your research next year.