Middle school social studies and language arts will be exploring the notion that “everyone has a story to tell”, which will manifest itself through various reading, writing, and research activiies.
Most middle school students love sharing their every thought and ex-perience. In language arts, the first essay will be a narrative, but before the actual writing takes place, students are brainstorming possible topics by ranking significant events in their lives. Those events will then be graphed and transformed into an artistic representation of the life they‟ve lived, thus far. Seventh graders will write a narrative modeled after NPR‟s “This I Believe” series, which focuses on those per-sonal experiences that shape our
beliefs. Eighth graders will focus on an experience from which they took a lasting lesson. Sixth graders will take a mundane experience and em-ploy strong descriptive writing skills to transform it into an interesting narrative.
The social studies connection lies in their historical figure project, which requires them to learn about the life of a historical figure and to then determine those significant moments and experiences that helped define that person‟s legacy.
So, through the self reflection of writing a personal narrative, and the process of researching a historical figure, our middle school students will truly explore the idea of everyone, from the average citizen to the most celebrated world leader, having a story to tell.
This whole process should be a lot of fun and provide an amazing opportunity for self-reflection. We look forward to displaying the stu-dents‟ work at the first project night, on Wednesday, December 16th.