Focus Example_Paul Harvey Project

From Mt. Airy, NC to Mayberry, USA

From Henley Middle School and UVA to...

...Walker-Grant Middle School (1995)

Then: Middle Grades Students

Now: Pre-Service Teachers at NC State University

• Generate topics of interest

• Read, listen, and analyze Paul Harvey's stories

• Listen and analyze previous students' stories

• Narrow focus and begin inquiry efforts

• Parallel inquiry into irony and mass media

• Write story (writing process)

• Rubric / self-evaluation and reflection component

• Perform story

• Peer evaluations and class voting

Outcomes

• One of most popular and successful projects, especially with resistant students

• Motivated interest in nonfiction reading

• Motivated interest in research and created bridge to more traditional research projects

• Better understanding of nonfiction writing, irony, and mass media

• Students developed understanding of writing in a particular format & larger audience

• Radio broadcast (live)

• Local cable television station filming and broadcast

• Generate topics of interest

• Students begin orientation to historical inquiry and primary source analysis

• Read, listen, and analyze Paul Harvey's stories

• Listen and analyze previous students' stories and digital videos / stories

• Narrow focus and begin inquiry efforts

• Parallel inquiry into irony and mass media

• Write historical inquiry paper (writing process)

• Adapt historical inquiry for Harvey's rest of the story format (writing process)

• Initially, create podcast. Now, storyboard and digital video / story, posted to CED Video Server

• Middle Grades Inquiry Application Essay

• Rubric / self-evaluation and reflection component

Outcomes

• Exposed students to options for high-interest nonfiction reading

• Students developed better understanding of historical inquiry and the doing of history

• Students developed better understanding of primary sources -- strategies for locating

and analyzing them

• Students developed better understanding of inquiry and strategies for integrating inquiry

into the classroom both small and large scale (evidenced in part in their student teaching

and early years of teaching)

• Motivated interest in research and created bridge to more traditional research projects

• Better understanding of nonfiction writing, irony, and 21st century media & emerging technologies

• Students less dependent on scaffolding Harvey's format provided

• Students created podcasts initially, and then storyboards and digital videos / stories

• Transition from podcast to digital video to digital storytelling