On Themes and Projects

I had some great teacher talk with my old friends Rebecca and Tracy last night. Tracy has just accepted a new job with a small alternative school that delivers its curriculum via themes and projects. She'll be teaching seventh- and eighth-grade English and Language Arts, and so our talk turned to books, as is the way with English teachers.

On the way home, I started thinking about the "themes" she was presented with for the year: England, America after the Revolution and before the Civil War, and "all the world's a stage." We had joked about England...what about it? how is that a theme? But really that could be said for the second one too. A place and a period of time are not themes, they are really just topics. This reminded me that many teachers come up with some way of organizing their work with students and call these organizing elements themes. But a theme is an IDEA; a theme is not the content or information itself. And it's the ideas that we need to be encouraging our students to explore; it's the ideas that give us rich opportunities to lead students toward learning; it's the ideas that give us and our students a framework for our lives.

That said, this is what my friend Tracy was handed. So how can you build "projects" around the "idea" of England? What is the concept of England, and how would you go about building meaningful, learning-rich projects that go beyond baking scones and reciting Wordsworth? Why are we fascinated with England? What does it have to do with who we are as Americans? Anyway, that's where my thinking was going.

Which led me to Harry Potter. I mean, why fight it, when Harry Potter is probably the main source or information our students might have about England by the time they are in the seventh or eighth grade? So what do the Harry Potter books tell us about England? Are Muggles and witches really two different sides to the English character -- exaggerations, yes, but something worth looking at? Is there something about English history that informs Hogwarts? What about elements of class that pervade these stories? What about quiddich -- how does it draw upon several different kinds of English sport? Why was the language of the first book "Americanized" (my step-daughter read both and says it was dumbed down) for American audiences?

Now for the "project"? What about finding an English school to work with (hey, Tracy, I have a few connections) for the year and building a greater understanding of each other's culture with each of the themes? What is the British understanding of America and its birth up to the Civil War? What is the American understanding (or misunderstanding of Britain) via the media and Harry Potter? What can these students build and share with others that will convey this meaningful connection? A series of Youtube videos? An e-book or e-zine about national identity from the eyes of its adolescents who are exploring their own identities? A field guide to American and British culture using various media on the web? A pile of curricular materials for teachers? Perhaps these students could produce something that goes beyond superficial understanding and cultural stereotypes, something that we all could learn from. Now that's a project.