High School Collaboration

Read on to discover how collaboration at the high school was able to happen at the upper grade levels.

Mrs. Kajfasz and Mrs. Lyke, two upper-level English teachers, were looking for a way to have students do their literary analysis essay in a new format, something more "fun" to read. They collaborated on this project anyway, so this provided a strong foundation for further collaboration. After discussing the requirements of the typical essay (character analysis, symbolism analysis, theme analysis, analysis of feminism in the novel and a personal reflection, supporting quotes, etc.) and then exploring the types of "extras" the teachers were willing to add, we came to a consensus.

Enter (in this case) Book Creator. Teachers provided the project requirements and added a digital spin: title page, table of contents, pictures, photos, design elements. They presented an example based on a different novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to give students an idea of what was possible with Book Creator. Here are examples from different students:

This senior English class teacher's spouse happened to be one of the teachers who collaborated on the Their Eyes Were Watching God project and he was so intrigued by the idea that he asked me if this project could work with what he was doing with his class. Mr. Lyke knew he wanted students to do a comic strip-style project but wasn't sure if or how it was possible.

I demo'd a comic strip idea for him and he created the project idea: title page, 5 acts (a title page for each of them), a limit to the number of pages per act. I then co-taught the introduction to the project and was available at the beginning and midway through the project for questions. The results were amazing! Students who did not always engage in class did some of their best work ever!