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 Shane Krukowski on February 24, 2010 at 9:00pm

I think a project management tool to manage all the great things you'll be doing would be in order. You could purchase Project Foundry and still have plenty of room for other goodies. http://www.projectfoundry.org

Much cheaper than the one New Tech has duct taped together and I think you'd find more featured.

Full disclosure- I work with Project Foundry.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 25, 2010 at 8:01pm

I'm not ready to commit ~$5,000 of $14,000. Maybe after we get started.

Permalink Reply by Sherri Johnston on February 24, 2010 at 10:58pm

Hi - I taught Humanities once upon a time, but never with a PBL focus.I am a big fan of literature circles where students can read and discuss novels in small groups, so I would definitely lean to mini-sets. You could select books related to a thematic topic if that interested you. For example, if all of the books featured some act of "courage", then each of the groups could compare what courage looks like, discuss the nuances of it, and look for parallels, contrasts and personal connections. Or perhaps all of the books related to a World Studies topic. Either way I think it could fit in nicely with PBL. There are lots of management techniques - just follow the work of Harvey Daniels and his colleagues. One caution, don't get too hung up with lit. circle roles. Harvey Daniels himself has shifted away from them.

In order to answer question #3, I would respond with a few questions back to you. Are you going to provide reading time in class? I used to expect my students to read a minimum of one novel per month, but I gave them 10 minutes per day for reading. How much discussing do you want your students doing about what they are reading? As for an appropriate quantity, I think the more important question is why do you want your students reading novels? What outcomes are you trying to accomplish? In a true PBL, students would have a great deal of choice about what they read and go in directions that you may not be able to predict. If you have five titles you've planned for the year, it might be limiting. Amazing titles could certainly be springboards to other inquiries, but with your tight ordering deadline, can you realistically find just the right set of titles?

One school library got smart and started stocking titles that would be good for book discussions in sets of 3. The books circulated normally, but when it was time for literature circles, we could offer stduents approx. 35 different titles x 3-4 copies. Students had a great deal of choice and the books served double duty. They weren't locked up in a cupboard most of the year.

I might be a bit old school, but I think I would prefer to have a class set of anthologies.

One last thought for you, some of the publishers (at least here in Canada) are getting smarter about how they design new language arts materials. They are creating resources with digital texts at multiple reading levels, with a variety of reading materials both fiction and non-fiction on a similar theme, driven by an inquiry question that is really appealing to adolescents (e.g what does it take to create a successful garage band?). Maybe all of your answers lie with an innovative new product.

Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 25, 2010 at 8:09pm

--Are you going to provide reading time in class?
I don't know. It depends if they read at home.
--How much discussing do you want your students doing about what they are reading?
As much as can be reasonably expected.
--why do you want your students reading novels?
Students have an ever-decreasing exposure to sitting down, holding a spine of a book, and reading for a sustained period of time. Every year it seems we actually have to teach students how to do this rather than remind them or encourage them to continue the exercise.
--can you realistically find just the right set of titles?
I don't know, but I've enlisted quite a few people to assist, including you!

I like the idea about the 35 different titles with 3-4 copies. Anthologies are okay for short stories or poetry, but we want to stay away from the big publishers marketing for high school $$.
Thanks for the feedback.

Permalink Reply by Suzie Boss on February 25, 2010 at 8:55am

No doubt others are thinking, what a great problem! Nonetheless, there's a real urgency here to spend this budget wisely, ensuring you have the resources you want for projects in the year ahead.
One place you might look for ideas: At Arapahoe High School in Colorado, teachers are making excellent use of technology to take literature study in new directions. I'd be curious how they allocate budget for buying books. Karl Fisch, who blogs at The Fischbowl, can tell you more, along with ninth-grade English teachers Anne Smith and Maura Moritz.
I wrote about one of their previous projects in this story for Edutopia.
Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 25, 2010 at 8:26pm

The Fischbowl is more like an aquarium! What a resource. I'll have to search (or wade) through for a while to find specific answers to my questions. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Jane Krauss on February 25, 2010 at 6:23pm

Must spend money. What a great problem to have! Before I even got to your list I was thinking, money? book sets!
Re: 1, I'd do either or both depending on the titles and themes. When I taught a Survival pbl unit I had books at different reading levels on the theme of survival. We used fiction and as you might expect the story arcs were similar across books. The books were an enhancement to the main study so this worked. 2, I think so. Reading guides could help guide discussion, esp if you can't be in every one. If I were in a pbl where issues were addressed I'd use fiction, nonfiction, articles, Web readings, etc. and use a Socratic seminar method. 3 & 4 Again I think it depends on the themes you address to decide how many of any title you'd need. In world studies curricula, what are the major topics your kids study? How old will your students be? I can't wait to learn what others say about your question.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 25, 2010 at 8:24pm

Here are the possible themes for 10th grade Humanities/World Studies:

1) Historiography
2) Patterns of Human Identity, Organization, and interaction
3) Systems of Faith
4) Revolution
5) Technology

A retired librarian (and a current resource librarian consultant) made us an Amazon wish list in which she addressed each theme. It currently has 33 titles! What we can't decide is whether to have everyone read one title per theme or have small groups pick a title from many choices for each theme.

Permalink Reply by Anthony Armstrong on February 25, 2010 at 11:55pm

Patrick,

I just wanted to add my support to Jane's point with regards to using Socratic seminars in the PBL classroom. Year after year my students tell me that the discussions and debates they were able to engage in through the use of the Socratic Seminar had the biggest impact on improving their understanding and comprehension of the content we were studying.

Another great site for Socratic Seminar resources and rubrics can be found here.

On another note, would you mind saying more about the "Historiography" theme for 10th grade? I know this theme is just a possibility yet, but I'd be very interested to here how you might go about teaching students this process, what resources are you using to guide your own instruction, and what are some things the students might do in this PBL course. I'm always looking for ways in which I can better teach my students the skills of the historian rather than just simply content.

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 26, 2010 at 11:19am

My question about Socratic seminars in PBL classrooms is this, are Socratic seminars a break from the P in PBL? Second, would novels as a class-set work best for a Socratic seminar?

As for Historiography:
My team-teacher and I have spent the last four years participating in two federal Teaching American History Grants. During this time we have gleaned a plethora of strategies to teach history that work beyond US history. For example, just last weekend we learned about a method called 'intersections', developed by Yohuru Williams. In a nutshell, the strategy assumes that at any intersection there are people stopped at red lights, people cautious at yellow lights, and others moving at green lights. In history (e.g. Civil Rights movement) people/laws/nations, etc. have been red, yellow, and green. Who were they? Why were they doing 'that' at the particular moment in time? Isn't PBL in classrooms an intersection? There are those against, those cautious, and those full-throttle. What are their positions? Why do they feel this way? As for me, my light is green but my Toyota's pedals are acting up and my GPS unit is on the fritz. I want all the information available before I floor it so that a) I don't wreck my classroom, and b) I don't waste my and others' time.

So, the theme historiography (we're thinking the introductory theme/project for our course) will serve as a toolbox for the remainder of the year. Students will learn how to be historians. How do historians investigate? What lenses might historians look through? What lens might a student favor based upon his/her own personal, familial history? I could go on...

Does this help? Thanks for your assistance.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Gant on February 26, 2010 at 11:19am

Hi Patrick,

As someone with some experience with New Tech schools, I can relay on what some other teachers have done with quite a bit of success. I'll address your questions point by point.

1) Whole class vs. mini class sets? Depends upon the project, and which discipline drives the project. Teachers at METSA, a New Tech in the Dallas area, did a project based upon the Odyssey (school-wide, in fact), where English drove the project, so they definitely went with whole class set. Teachers at Sacramento New Tech would often have mini-sets, especially when social studies drove the curriculum - they would gather a group of novels that would address the themes in SS that they were addressing in the project. By using mini-sets, they allowed for student choice of novel, and they used it as a differentiation strategy. Most New Tech Humanities classes do both whole-class for some projects, and mini-sets for others.

2) Novels can be taught in a variety of ways very effectively. The comments on this posting about socratic seminars are great. The driving idea behind using novels in projects is that the project should create a need to know or need to read the novel. Here is an example: in a Humanities course at Sacramento New Tech, teachers have students carry out a trial simulation where they either prosecute or defend the ranch from Of Mice And Men regarding their compliance with labor issues. The students really get into it, and they have to read the novel in order to complete the project.

3) In a PBL environment, it may be advatageous to think not only along the ideas of themes, but also in terms of number of projects. As you start in a PBL environment, you'll want to start off with shorter-term projects (1 to 2 weeks), and progress to longer term projects. I recommend that no project last longer than 5 weeks, at least in your first year. So that translates to 4 - 7 projects per semester. More than one novel per project can be tough.

4) Anthologies tend to be rather thick and physically cumbersome - so you might consider a class set, and use primarily in class, with a few extra if you want to make them available for students to check out to take home.

Hope this helps.

ps: I am a New Tech Network Coach. If you want to talk about any of this, let me know. I can give lots of other examples. kgant@newtechnetwork.org Also, If you are thinking of looking into Project Foundry (which is cool, to be sure), you should know that excellent project management software is already part of the school that you will be part of. Hopefully, the duct tape will hold. :)

Permalink Reply by Patrick Cronin on February 26, 2010 at 11:44am

Kevin,

I know I and Nex+Gen will be collaborating with you and I very much look forward to that. However, your comments are very helpful in a 'tree' type of way, but my team-teacher and I need to sow the 'forest'. As PBL newbies, we have done a tremendous amount of work in less than one week. Time is our enemy with the money. We're having discussions about one project, let alone up to fourteen. It seems like hindsight will be a luxury that we currently don't have. We have to place our order now and we have to spend it all. Predicting what titles in what quantities is almost a crap shoot to those of us who have just begun our journey on the Eight-fold path. Your enlightenment tips are amazing, don't get me wrong, but we have the rest of the forest (tradition) to plant.

-PC