The Make A Difference Project​

A Teacher's Reflection

Year One

 

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"And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

 

 

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died"
(If Everyone Cared, Nickelback)



     It began as a seed of an idea after another unsuccessful year of research with my 6th grade students. The papers were lackluster and almost painful to read. How many research papers can you read about Cheetahs, professional football players and bubble gum?  It wasn’t even the fact that they were painful for me to read, they were painful for the students to write! I mean seriously, just how many twelve years old kids really care how fast a Cheetah can run or how bubble gum was invented?  And to be honest, how many of them have researched the same lame topics year after year. They start writing research papers in 1st grade, and I KNOW my daughter brought home a paper about Cheetah in second grade, so there you go.

 

     I realized after an agonizing weekend of reading 60 meaningless papers, void of any heart or enthusiasm, that I was NOT going to do research the same way again. What relevance did these topics have to any of my students’ lives and how were the topics going to have a positive impact on them and help them grow as learners and as citizens? The answer was simple, they weren’t.  So just how could we still meet the district mandates of teaching research and persuasion, but do it in a meaningful way?  

Research is a long and fairly extensive unit in Language Arts, usually taking the full nine weeks of the quarter from start to finish. During the unit, Language Arts teachers team with the our Media Specialist, Jean Hellwege, to teach the research lessons.  Students learn how to form questions, locate information both online and in books, evaluate websites, cite resources and write the paper.  Everything involved in our research is done using technology.  We have gone completely paperless, and the kids (and administrators) love it (needless to say, we save a lot of money on paper and copying costs!) It is not uncommon to see students taking notes on Googledocs and scanning the on-line data bases on iPads, but because we have so few of them in our media, there is always a waiting list to use one!

 

     Prior to beginning our second quarter research unit, Debbie, Eric, Jean and I met to toss around some ideas of how we wanted our research to look. I shared my idea of having students research problems our society faces and how they can help; an idea that I had been playing around with for years but never had colleagues, dedicated enough, to make it work. They loved the idea and our Make a Difference research project was born. We started brainstorming on Googledocs until eventually the project began to take on a life of its own. We grew more and more excited as the day when we introduced the project got closer.

 

     Finally, the day to unveil our idea, to the 180 sixth graders in our team, arrived. We met with 90 kids at a time to discuss the project; a plan we had yet to experience with any other group of students. Yes, as we explained to them, they would be our guinea pigs. As the kids listened to our idea, you could feel the excitement begin to grow in the room. Students turned to discuss their ideas with neighbors, unable to contain their enthusiasm.  We asked students for ideas to place on our brainstorming sheet and they enthusiastically began rattling off dozens of organizations that were dedicated to helping both people and animals.

Research began the next day. Students formed questions, found sources, read and took notes on Noodletools.  But something was different this year. Much different.  As I walked around the room, I noticed a much more somber mood than in years past. Students weren’t wasting time talking to their neighbors or “surfing the net” for football scores, they were completely engaged in the on-line articles they were reading. One student, Izzy, who was researching child abuse, had tears rolling down her cheeks as she sat at her computer and read about the abuse that one 3 year old girl had endured. Later Izzy journaled about her feelings in this writing notebook entry.

 

     As I walked around the computer lab, I was amazed at the many different topics/organizations the students had chosen to research; topics that had somehow touched their lives personally. Mason researched Type 1 Diabetes and The Juvenile Diabetes foundations, because he had lived with it his entire life and understood its difficulties.  Kaitie, an animal lover, chose to research animal abuse and support the Humane Society and JT, whose father was serving our country in Iraq, chose to learn more about the Wounded Warriors Foundation.  

 

     As the students learned more about their causes, and connected with agency volunteers, they began asking to have speakers come talk to the classes.  We thought the idea was wonderful and encouraged the students to organize these presentations for the rest of us... and did they ever! Not only did we have one speaker, we had five, all arranged by the students themselves. Volunteers from the Child Advocacy Center, Hope Venture, People’s City Mission, Lincoln Action Agency and the Humane Society all delivered powerful, emotional testimonials as to why there is a need for help. Speakers shared stories and pictures that often left the students (and teachers) with tears welled up in their eyes and lumps in their throats.

 

     The research papers turned out to be some of the best papers I have read in my 20 years of teaching. They were not only filled with meaningful facts and data, but also contained a piece of each of the writers’ hearts.  Students described the problem they were researching, why it is a problem, what is currently being done to help with the problem and what they intended to do to help. The leads pulled readers in, making them to read more, and the conclusions left them wanting to  grab their checkbooks to make a donation.  In a single word the papers were.... POWERFUL and we were ecstatic.

 

     Traditionally, in LPS, research is taught 2nd quarter and the Persuasive Writing Unit is taught 4th quarter, but we decided to switch it up a bit and move our Persuasive Writing unit up to 3rd Quarter. The students had done the hard work of researching, it seemed a natural fit for the students to now take what they had learned and  use it to persuade others to help make a difference too! The idea was, we thought, BRILLIANT!  So after a short Holiday break, we came back to school ready to dive into persuasive writing.

As with the research project, the persuasive writing unit seemed to be much easier to teach, not only because the kids were motivated and had an audience, but more importantly, because the writing, they were doing, was relevant and had a purpose!  The kids were writing their papers to educate the community about their platform and trying to persuade them to reach out and make a difference by helping others. Students were told that they would share their papers on the radio, in newspapers with family and friends. The papers would be read to anyone who would listen and who wanted to help change the lives of others.

 

     One student, Andrew, became passionate about Senator Fulton’s bill to bring the Pledge of Allegiance back to all of the schools of Nebraska.  Not only did he want to share his persuasive paper with family and friends, it was his goal to share it with the committee at the special session at the State Capital... and share he did!  Decked out in a dress shirt and tie, his presentation was powerful and convincing.  Andrew did not only catch the attention of Nebraskans, he caught the attention of the nation when he was interviewed about his testimony on Fox News Network!

 

     Many of the other students became interested in helping out the organizations they had researched. Mr. Knudsen, the principal, was being bombarded with requests to hold bake sales and food drives, one girl even asked if she could bring her horse to school to encourage students to donate to her organization, The Double Clear Equestrian Center. It was obvious the kids wanted to do more, so as a group we sat down to discuss our options. Everyone agreed that it would be too overwhelming for each of the 160 students, in our pod, to hold their own fundraiser so it was finally agreed that as a 6A team we would hold the First Annual Make a Difference Fair at Scott Middle School.

 

     It was decided, by the group, that the purpose of the fair would be to educate others on how to make a difference in the world. The event would be similar to a Science Fair. As fair goers walked around, students would share the information they had learned through their research while also trying to persuade their listeners to, “Make a Difference.”  Of course they couldn’t stop there, “but what if they WANT to donate money to the organization?” Greta asked, “Can’t we take donations too? Please.” Mr. Knudsen rolled his eyes realizing that there was no way we were going to be able to say “no” to her, but also realizing the amount of work it was going to take to make this fly, but of course, we decided to do it.

 

     We started by holding a pod meeting to organize the 160 students into groups supporting the same organizations. In bright green and blue Expo markers, we scribbled student names and organizations all over the white board, in the pod, until we eventually came up with groups representing 44 different organizations from around the community of Lincoln, as well as the world. The students were then given time to meet in their new groups to get to know each other better and begin thinking about what they wanted to accomplish together as a team.

 

     Group work started the next day as students, of all learning levels, collaborated to begin working on their “booth” aka their table and tri-fold. Individual strengths and talents started to emerge almost immediately. Artists began working on display boards while the writers began planning a flyer to hand out to fair participants. Students with technology expertise created powerpoints and iMovies to include in their booths and many groups also came up with creative gifts to hand out that would help fair goers remember their cause when they walked up to the donation table.

 

      Speaking and presentation is another of the objectives taught in 6th grade. We felt since students would be sharing information with others at the Make a Difference Fair, it would be the perfect opportunity to review speaking skills with the students. Students reviewed how to use notecards, the importance of eye contact and speaking slowly and clearly. They practiced what they would say with their groups and offered feedback and assistance to each other. Groups also discussed what they would wear, the night of the fair, to look professional. It was hard to keep from smiling as I walked around eavesdropping on their passionate conversations.

Students quickly realized that in order to raise money, they were going to have to get people to their Make a Difference Fair. The more people they got to attend, the more money they would collect for their causes. Some of the students put together a flyer that we could all distribute to friends, family and neighbors. We were interviewed by the Lincoln Public Schools media person about our project which ended up on the front page of the district’s website! Our tech savvy students then  “shared” the article with friends on their facebook pages to reach even more people. Three of our students even made a trip to one of the local radio stations to share the event with Lincoln listeners!  It was amazing how resourceful the students were when it came to getting the word out about our event!

 

     As the event got closer the tensions started to rise (mostly in the teachers!) How many tables would we need? Where would we keep the donations? How many people would actually show up? What on earth were we thinking when we agreed to this? were a few of the many questions that started to flood our minds. The night of the hour long Make a Difference Fair finally came. With the help of the custodians, we arranged the tables in the Multi-Purpose Room and we designated a special table in the front, decorated with balloons and streamers, for the donations.

 

     Students arrived 30 minutes early to begin to set up; flyers were placed on the tables, iMovies were ready to go on the computers and the tri-fold displays were bright and colorful hoping to attract possible donors. The students were excited and dressed in their best, big smiles decorating their faces. Of course people started to arrive 10 minutes before the start time, but we were ready to go. What happened was amazing as the students all went into professional mode and the teachers were able to take a back seat and just watch; our job was over, this night belonged to the students.

 

     The room was packed, in fact there were so many people in the room, it was difficult to walk around. The students had achieved what they had hoped for... a full house. Students delivered the information with maturity and clarity and the participants were blown away by  passion that filled the room. These students truly cared about their organizations and the work they had done. Volunteers from some of the local charities even came to support the students.  It was truly an amazing event filled with not only lots of learning, but lots of love.

 

     We had hopes of raising a few hundred dollars, during the hour, to help our our charities, but we were a bit off on our estimations. When we began to count the money  we were astonished to find out that we hadn’t raised a few hundred dollars, we had raised over $2600.00 dollars! The kids beamed when they heard the news understanding that every penny would go to help organizations they had researched. The even was a HUGE success!  

 

     As teachers we learned a lot from this project. Yes, there is learning that needs to take place in school, objectives that must be met, but that doesn’t mean they have to be met doing worksheets and reading text books. These objectives can be met by involving kids in projects that help them to become active, contributing members of their communities.  Our students didn’t just learn how to write a research paper and persuasive essay, they learned that they can make a difference in the lives of others... and that is a life lesson!

 

 

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died
When nobody died

by Kim Ridder