Class of 2017 students took this project completed by their class of 2016 peers (during the 2014-2015 school year) to a new level by not only writing the stories of their "defining moments" but also working in editorial teams to design and publish their own book.
Students began this project by looking at exemplar texts from last year's junior class, from students at High Tech High Chula Vista (California) who wrote narratives around the same prompt, and from published authors of various ages and locations who expanded on particular moments in their lives that shaped who they are, what they value, and who they hope to become. As they read and discussed these texts, students compiled a set of standards of excellence. In the picture above, students used that larger set of standards and began to narrow it down as they cross-checked them against narratives from last year's book that stood out to them as models for their own work.
As students dove into their own personal narratives and critiqued one another's work, this project shifted away from last year's straightforward approach to put the ownership of this book in students' hands. As the narratives reached a point where students felt they were good enough to meet their personal standards, we pushed the standard higher by moving students into editorial positions:
This culminated in the publication of Who We Are, Volume Two. Written, edited, organized, and designed by students, this work pushes the Defining Moments project to the next level, but it is only just the beginning of our journey this year.
- Every student was a contributing editor, writing a piece for submission for possible publication.
- A leadership team was selected from each class (after an application process), composed of an editor-in-chief, a managing editor, an art director, and an exhibition director.
- Current drafts of students' writing pieces went first to the content editors who checked the piece against our content-related standards of excellence.
- Once approved by content (often after need for further revision to push the standard of the work higher), those writing pieces moved along to the copy editors whose job was to look more closely at issues of grammar and mechanics.
- During this process, layout editors and art coordinators considered the types of stories that were being written and shared to design the book accordingly, making decisions as small as font size to decisions as large as how best to promote our book for online sales.
- Throughout this process, exhibition coordinators considered how to share this work with visitors to the school and others who might be interested in viewing this work.
This culminated in the publication of Who We Are, Volume Two. Written, edited, organized, and designed by students, this work pushes the Defining Moments project to the next level, but it is only just the beginning of our journey this year.
Click the image above for more info or to order a copy of the book.