Pleasant Plains/Farmington Collaborative Project

Below is an example of some collaborative work PPHS Junior English students are doing with Farmington High School. Feel Free to take a look. 

Students will read Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography as a common text.  They will focus on Franklin’s use of virtues and how he tried to apply the virtues to everyday life.
We will use Skype or Google Hangouts to allow students to see the commonality of the two school districts.  We will have the students give some demographics of the school through a student spokesperson.  We will also have students create pre-written questions to present at this time.  The skyping will give the students a way to connect with group mates.
Next, we will place students into groups (six students per group) depending on the total number of participants. Those students will be expected to make contact via e-mail, texting, skype, or social networking. We will also have group building exercises before the project begins.  The below dates are tentative.

• Students will make an initial e-mail contact introducing themselves.  The students will then select a leader to send an e-mail to the teachers involved along with cc their group mates.  In the e-mail, the body should have the two following pieces of information: 1) one distinction between the two different schools--the obvious will not be allowed e.g. school mascot, school colors, school name, ect.; 2) one commonality the schools have--the obvious will not be allowed e.g. juniors, high school students, Illinoisans, ect. (Friday, September 13; 3:00 pm)

• Students will create a google doc.  The leader will continue to lead, but each of the other group members must have a job title with a job description (the leader will need to create a job description as well).  Some examples are proofreader, typist, imagist (you will need to work together to create these).  This will be created on the google doc.  Also on this google doc, the group members will begin to create a timeline of meeting times.  This document will be shared with the teachers involved. (Friday, Septemeber 27; 3:00 pm)

Individual: 

• Students will edit a page under their Group page - title the page with the role then your first name (for example, Psychological - John).

• Each student will then summarize/analyze Franklin’s piece - analyze per assigned role [1. psychological, 2. religious, 3. historical view, 4. unheard voice (females, minorities, children), 5. scientific, 6. societal/cultural].

• Below the analysis, each student will be required to write about their perspective of the reading selection. Each student will then comment on each of their team members' analyses.

• Students will need to read and begin to discuss which virtue would be the best to try to apply individually. Each will apply the virtue for a 24 hour period, log results on a log sheet, and write a reflection on their efforts.  Students will be required to post at least one comment per team member to the individual virtue reflections presented in their group.