The PBL Process

For this project, students wrote personal narratives detailing their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What we wanted to learn next from our last PBL:

We wanted to learn how people respond to changes in their environment or circumstances.

Driving Question:

How can we adapt to changes in the structures around us?

What We Knew:

1) We knew what it meant to adapt to something.

2) We knew what change was.

3) We new that every story is told from a specific point of view or perspective.

4) We knew what a conflict was.

What We Needed to Learn:

1) We needed to learn the difference between narrative point of view and perspective point of view.

2) We had to become knowledgeable about the differences in narrative points of view.

3) We had to learn what the term structure meant (in this case, it is an organization, norm, or tradition that keeps a society/community functioning).

4) We had to learn about the various types of conflict.

Standards Addressed:

1) ELAGSE7RL6- Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.

2) ELAGSE7RL3- Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how settings shape the characters or plot)

3) ELAGSE7W3- Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well- structured event sequences.

Project Timeline:

Entry Event: Students made predictions about the outcome of a hypothetical situation involving two different communities.

Project Management (Step by Step Plan):

• Students began a novel study of the book The People of Sparks.

• As they read, they examined differences is character perspectives, and they analyzed conflicts that arose in the text.

• Students also engaged in classroom discussions in which they talked about ways in which the citzens from Ember had to adjust to life in Sparks.

• These discussions naturally fed into an examination of the ways in which we, as individuals, have to adjust to changes around us.

• Students learned the difference between a fictional narrative and a personal narrative.

• They read an example of a personal narrative and identified elements found in personal narratives.

• Then, we talked about structures and brainstormed a list of various structures that exist within our society.

• Next, students reflected on their lives during the pandemic and the ways in which things around them changed. They also pinpointed strategies they used to adjust to these changes.

• Finally, students brainstormed for their personal narratives by completing a graphic organizer, in which they laid out the details of the paragraphs in the essay.

Reflection:

We will complete our reflections after Project Exhibition Night.

Revision:

We will make revisions to our work based upon feedback given during Exhibition Night.

What We Want to Learn Next:

We would like to learn how societies create structures that are used to support their functioning.