World Issues Project: Irvington's 10th grade benchmark

The World Issues Project, Irvington's 10th grade benchmark, is a shared English and Social Science curriculum focused on significant problems facing our global community today. It is designed to refine the research, writing, listening and speaking skills students learned during the Change Project and help them build their skills for future classes, QUEST, and life after high school.

Throughout WIP, sophomores are expected to do their own work with integrity. Passing off someone else's work as one's own--regardless of whether it comes from a website, another student, or an artificial intelligence program--will not be tolerated. Consequences may include a zero on the assignment, referrals to administration, and loss of privileges such as extracurriculars. Please refer to Irvington's academic honesty policy in the student handbook for details. One more time for clarity: WIP students are not allowed to use AI for brainstorming, researching, writing, revising, or any other part of the process of doing any WIP assignment, regardless of a teachers' policies for other (non-benchmark) class work.

Sophomores are randomly assigned one of 7 significant contemporary world issues. Each student will then work individually, with the support of both their English and History teachers, to become an expert on that assigned global issue, as well as the impact of that issue on the global community. 

Students will begin by researching key facts about their assigned issue, including who is affected, where the issue is most prevalent, and the major causes and effects of the issue. Semester one concludes with a Socratic seminar, an opportunity for students to discuss their findings so far with others from across the school who have been assigned the same issue, and gain insight from others' research. 

Armed with this knowledge, in semester two students will move to the final phase of the project. They will create a paper comparing two different approaches to improving the issue, backed by their research (including international sources) and including the information researched in Semester 1.  Due to the global nature of the project, there are no service hours associated with WIP.

To support students in planning their time throughout the year, the packet of all assignment instructions is available here and the timeline of assignments is below.