Friday, September 21, 2007

A Unit of One's Own

I'm trying to figure out ways for my students to develop meaningful "portfolios" at the end of each unit. As my American Literature students have been reading The Crucible, for example, we've covered a way array of topics. However, they each wrote on five personal philosophy statements at the beginning of the unit, and I'd like them to use The Crucible to complicate and strengthen at least one of these initial personal philosophies so that months or years from now, they can say "This is what I took from The Crucible."

I'm thinking they can pick one personal philosophy statement as a focus and then support it with a selection of blogs, in-class writing prompts, pieces of essays, and other work they've done with the play; I'd also like them to extend their understanding by doing something "creative" with this focus, such as producing a short story, song, photo album, etc.

What I really need help with is finding a tool that would bring together mixed media and help organize these bits and pieces into a thematic whole that could be shared not only with me but with the rest of class and possibly linked from our class blog.

Any ideas?