Students in grade 6 participate in whole-group units that are designed to introduce students to some of the options in which they may personalize subsequent years of their gifted program. Units do not all occur each year and are often altered, shortened, lengthened, or substituted as the students’ interests develop.
Students are divided into two groups and tasked with rebuilding civilization. The unit begins with researching and choosing a form of government. Using this decision-making model, students develop a plan for location, resources gathering and allocation, division of labor, and defense. Groups develop a physical or digital model of their city and present it to the other group. This project introduces some of the concepts of the Future City program. Typically, it transitions into an independent research project centered around an element of the village of the student’s choice.
Through a series of read-react-discuss cycles, students learn about how they were identified as gifted, what that label designates, common strengths, weaknesses, and traits of gifted people and typical perceptions of gifted individuals based around Celi Trépanier writings.
A well-developed and active sense of humor is one of the traits that typically resonates with students from the giftedness unit. Building off of that, we study the anatomy, process, and elements of humor. The unit progresses towards students understanding, appreciating, and being able to craft humor.
Students combine research skills, persuasive writing, and public speaking to develop a logical, convincing argument.
Students conduct research on a self-selected topic. The focus of the unit is to evaluate sources for reliability, to gather and maintain a bibliography of sources, and to develop a well supported thesis statement.
Submitting and Refining Thesis
Slideshow Good Thesis/Bad Thesis