Help! Need to spend $14,000 for Humanities in 2 wks...

My team teacher and I have just been hired to teach a World Studies/Humanities course at a new PBL, New Tech Network school next year. We would prefer not to purchase a textbook. However, we need to make our purchase orders by March 9. So, here are our main questions:

1) In a PBL setting, is it best to have novel sets for the whole class or mini-sets for book groups within the class?

2) What works best to teach a novel (or to use a novel to teach a theme) within a PBL framework? Can groups rotate titles? If so, can this be managed/assessed effectively?

3) If we want to teach thematically, is one novel per theme (5) reasonable? Too much, too little?

4) If we have anthologies (for short stories and primary sources/documents) is it best to purchase multiple copies or multiple titles?

Any other suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

Tags: Humanities, novels, purchasing, resources, spending, textbooks

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 26, 2010 at 12:35pm

Perhaps you can see the forest and I want to hug a tree...

Permalink Reply by Syd on March 1, 2010 at 8:42pm

Um..hello. Someone throw me a branch. I'm in the quicksand over here...lol

Permalink Reply by Jane Krauss on February 26, 2010 at 12:13pm

Kevin I really like this statement: The driving idea behind using novels in projects is that the project should create a need to know or need to read the novel. I can tell you are a great coach-- thanks for coaching us.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 26, 2010 at 12:27pm

Perhaps therein lies the problem: We don't know what the projects will be yet and therefore we know not what needs there are for particular titles.

It appears as though we'll need to pick titles and then work backwards, creating driving questions that will touch upon concepts within the novels. We have been picking titles that tie to our themes. So, our hierarchy has been Themes, Titles, Questions, Projects. I don't know that we have time to reorder this. Or do we? Somehow the futility will have to become purposeful.

-PC

Permalink Reply by Kevin Gant on February 26, 2010 at 12:28pm