Part 6 Finalizing The Project
Just as we had planned, the page layouts for our magazine and Flash animations were completed by the impending due date of December 21, 2012 (Our exhibition of student work on the eve of The Mayan apocalypse). However, our work was not finished in the End of the World Uncovered project yet. We had sold 65 issues and our crowd of eager customers awaited their copies. However, we knew there was much to consider in terms of making our magazine professional. We wanted this product to look authentic and contain all of the trimmings of a real publication. A few final steps remained.
Analyzing Models To Improve Our Work
In order to stimulate our students thinking around what makes a magazine professional, we engaged them in a critique of exemplary magazines National Geographic, Scholastic News, Time and Newsweek. We scattered issues of these titles across the table tops of our classrooms and launched students into a gallery walk with the aim of answering one question: What can we do to make our magazine more professional? We knew that the ideas should come from the students in order to make the revisions authentic and democratic. The ideas our students generated during the critique was impressive. They made a list of improvements that went beyond what we (the teachers) would have recommended. And because they created the ideas, it was more powerful. Students determined that we needed to add the following elements to our magazine: Table of contents Did you know? & Vocabulary spotlights in each article Quiz Crossword puzzles and word searches Photo galleries of the process (behind the scenes) Polls Debates Advertisements
Documentary: Exhibition interviews After generating this list, we asked students to sign up for these new jobs. Other students opted to edit and revise their articles, artwork and Flash animations. Since this was the start of a new semester (with a slightly different schedule), we now met with our group of students to work on the co-designed project two or three times a week for one hour. Over the course of the next two months, students chiseled away at their new
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jobs. Each group created an action plan with detailed steps for completing the work. Ms. Wong and I facilitated the groups, providing them with mini-lessons on page layout, photo editing, data analysis, interview techniques and other pertinent skills. This period of time required more extensive management. We noticed that many students were beginning to lose steam on the project especially those with less interesting jobs. Some students finished their jobs earlier than others and we ran out of things to do. I wouldnt say that the quality of work lacked, but the focus of many students waned. As the majority of students completed their jobs, small groups finalized their work outside of class or as early finisher work in Literacy Lounge or Mathnasium (our morning classes). Finally, in early March, the work was complete. Id like to say that it ended with a big crescendo, but it didnt. Ive experienced this in other publishing projects. The wrap-up is bit of a dnouement. Much of the final work comes down to three or four students. I suppose when youre trying to do work that mirrors real-world experiences, this is often the case.
The Magazine Launch Party That Never Was
`After exhibition, we promised our students a magazine launch party (complete with pizza) when the work was 100% finished. This day arrived the Friday before Spring Break. Before students entered the class, I delicately laid out color proofs of each magazine page on tables around our class. The idea was for students to spend time reading each others work and celebrating their successes. Ms. Wong and I stood in the center of the classroom as students entered. I announced, Ladies and gentlemen, what you see before you is the finished product of our first semesters project. Never before have I seen a group of students put forth the kind of effort and passion that you exhibited in The End of the World Uncovered project. Please enjoy and celebrate the professional and creative work in this magazine! Students began milling about the tables, remarking on the fine looking prints (the brilliant colors, sharp designs and revisions they had made). I could not have been prouder at that moment, watching them honor each others work. And then, Grant Callahan stepped forward with a brilliant question, Mr. Shaddox, what should we do if we see a mistake? I took a gulp of air. Mistake. What kind of mistake, Grant? My God, what had he found? This article has some spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Look, he said, pointing to another students article. Actually, a few of the articles still have mistakes. I couldnt believe it. I thought we had nailed every error! Would this project ever end? Had The End of the World Uncovered project become the Endless End of the World project? But before I could think of something to say, Ms. Wong had already
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found a solution. There she stood in the midst of students, passing out post-it notes. She looked at me knowingly. I just gave her a thumbs up, a huge smile and joined in the post-it note distribution. Within minutes, a dozen students were combing through the page layouts, looking for imperfections and writing suggestions for improvement on the post-its. Our magazine launch party had transformed into one final editing session. If ever I was in search of a testament to the sense of ownership and pride attached to this work, I had found it. The work would never be truly perfect. But the process was.
The End Lets Try It Again
On a late Tuesday evening, sometime in March, I sat staring at an Adobe InDesign file on the blinding screen of my laptop. It was the final page in our magazine layout. My sleep-laden eyes traced a large area of negative space within this page. I had been fussing over this part of the design for far too long (as teacher editors often will). It was just empty space, right? Everything else was perfect. However, this empty space demanded something epic something that was beyond my limits. I knew that it needed a phrase or quote, summing up the quintessential essence of our project to fill its dimensions. It finally dawned on me: I was not the right person to create this definitive statement. I turned instead to the students to help me find this idea. After all, this was our approach throughout our co-design. So I called upon something I had gathered earlier in my research. I had asked Malcolm if he could write a few sentences that summarized our experience together in the project. He had collaborated on the narrative for our project documentary and produced some beautiful work in his article on black holes. I asked him to provide a quote, explaining the process of co-design, the exhibition experience and his feelings on the entire process. Heres what he wrote: It took a lot of work to create the project (not just the article and video). We worked with our classmates and teachers, asking questions about the world and ourselves. We had to look at all of those questions, find the most relatable and build off of that. We saw all of these questions about life and death and used them to create a project about the end of the world. We wanted to find out if these different things could actually cause the end. I remember the satisfaction that I felt when I was presenting it at exhibition. They were amazed that a group of 6th graders could do this type of work. When we actually have a say in the project, it makes it more fun for all of us. We had design input which made it more interesting. I would definitely want to try this again. Okay. Lets try this again. 128
