Craftsmanship

High Quality Work: Claim 2
McAuliffe scholars create beautiful work across grade levels and assignment type.

“My teachers helped me to push me do things that I would never expect myself, like drawing a realistic shoe and digging deep into shoe company research and policies.” - Claire E., Current 7th Grade

McAuliffe educators understand the powerful impact of scholars creating beautiful work for themselves and authentic audiences. Scholars organize their ideas, attend to details, and revise their work. By thinking carefully about how best to represent their understanding and knowledge, scholars achieve a high level of complexity in their work. This is true for expedition final products and shorter-term assignments/assessments.

Our High Quality Work Protocols (viewable through the overview page of this High Quality Work section), start to tell the story of our craftsmanship journey. In May 2014, we noted the need for “more use of standards from the professional world in design - more beautiful work.” Over the course of the next two years, we added more projects that demanded standards from the professional world, including the projects showcased in this section. By May 2016, we saw many more examples of products with strong craftsmanship and noted, “we wonder about getting all students to the level of quality displayed by the examples we looked at today.” We thought seriously about the mechanisms we could use to support all scholars to produce projects with masterful craftsmanship. As you’ll see in HQW Claim 3, we have also been successful in guiding diverse learners to produce high quality work, including work with strong craftsmanship.

One of our levers for excelling at craftsmanship is the integrated and collaborative work of our design teacher, Ms. Ackerman. Historically, Ms. Ackerman has taught design classes full time and spent time during her planning blocks and after hours working with content area teachers to use the design process to support academic projects and expedition products.

In 2016-17 we shifted Ms. Ackerman’s schedule so that she would teach 50% of the time and spend the other 50% of her time in a collaborative role consulting with teachers and teaching mini-lessons on the design process and craftsmanship skills. Specifically, Ms. Ackerman models a pre-thinking and planning process, as well as the skills associated with specific medium scholars are working with on their project or product.

Our Technology Integration Specialist, Ms. Ciccone, has a similar role of teaching part time and consulting/collaborating with teachers the other half of the time. Ms. Ciccone works with all grades and all content area teachers to incorporate both minor and major elements of design, including use of digital tools to create high quality, professional looking products.

When we conducted our High Quality Work Protocol in May 2017, we noted many more examples of strong craftsmanship, crediting the collaborative efforts between teachers, sufficient time offered for scholars to work on projects and products, and structures that guided scholars to incorporate feedback into their multiple drafts. Below are four examples of beautiful work produced by scholars: 6th grade shoe illustrations, 7th grade mythology illustrations , 8th grade Frederick Douglass children’s stories, and 8th grade space magazine articles.

6th Grade Shoe Illustrations

As described in Character Claim 3, 6th grade scholars study the working conditions in the factories of specific shoe companies. For the final product of their “Me, My Stuff, and Why” learning expedition, scholars build an annual version of the “If the Shoe Fits” website. The purpose of the website is to help consumers make informed choices about their shoe purchasing. Scholars learn that effective websites have strong visuals and so scholars create detailed and accurate illustrations of the shoes sold by the companies they are researching. All scholars’ visuals are included on the website and some illustrations are selected to represent the group’s company assessment.

The process of getting to beautiful work consists of lessons and guided practice about line drawings, color, shape, and use of space. Scholars primarily learn these skills and work on their shoe illustrations in their design class with Ms. Ackerman. Scholars also participate in several rounds of peer critique, using this task card and rubric as a guide.

Scholars’ learning targets were:

I can demonstrate the elements and principles of design: line, shape, shading, color, and space in a realistic drawing of a specific shoe.
I can create consistency with my design and other designs on the website.
I can incorporate feedback from peers/ teachers to improve my work with multiple drafts.

The learning targets come alive in the evolution of a Puma shoe illustration by Maryanne displayed below. Maryanne began by focusing on line and shape. In each draft she added more detail and shading. It was only after multiple rounds of critique that she integrated color into her illustration. While each scholar’s illustration reflected their own artistic vision, the compilation of shoes displayed in a gallery on the “If the Shoe Fits” website, have consistencies and so look beautiful next to one another even with the individuality of each illustration. This directly connects with the second target listed above: “create consistency with my design and other designs.”

7th Grade Mythology Illustrations and Artist Statement

As part their exploration of the hero’s journey, 7th grade scholars create cut-paper artwork depicting a character’s experience of a specific stage of the hero’s journey. The task card includes the following overview of the project:

“Choose one episode from your expert Myth. Plan an illustration that aligns with one of the stages of ‘The Hero’s Journey.’ In addition, you will need to write an artist statement that demonstrates your understanding of how two quotes are connected and include an explanation of what we learned about the main character, based on his/her response to a stage in the hero’s journey. Finally, you will need to include a brief statement that shows a thorough analysis of your artwork.”

Here are targets for the hero’s journey mythology illustration and artist statement:

I can select evidence from a myth and “The Hero’s Journey” that shows how a character is on a hero’s journey. (Academic Target)
I can explain how I used feedback to improve my work. (HOWLs Target)

The rubric that guides scholars’ work contains criteria for both their artist’s statement and high-quality craftsmanship. Our design teacher works with scholars through stages of the design, critique, and revision processes. Our design teacher, Angela Ackerman, works with scholars through stages of the design, critique, and revision processes. First, scholars use a notecatcher to analyze the connections between a selected myth and elements of the hero’s journey. This task demonstrates scholars’ ability to cite evidence from two different texts and connect them through their illustration. Scholars then focus on one element of the hero’s journey for their artwork by sketching a first take on the artwork. Then they create three thumbnail sketches, using space, scale, and layout. Scholars select the sketch that best represents their idea and go through several more rounds of drafting and critique.

As you can see in the samples below, the mythology illustrations are quite distinct from the shoe illustrations described above. These mythology illustrations were created with paper cutting and strategic placement of pieces of boldly colored and precisely cut paper. This was a novel method for most of our scholars; they enjoyed working with the medium so distinct from drawing or painting. Scholars also attended to the craftsmanship of their artist statements, engaging in critique, revision, and feedback to ensure they clearly explained their artistic choices and the connections between their choices and the hero’s journey.

The Supreme Ordeal

This scholar thought carefully about multiple key moments in the Odyssey before settling on Odysseus’s Supreme Ordeal, when Zeus hit his boat with a bolt of lightning. His artist statement illustrates intentional artistic choices, including the placement of Zeus in the image and the angle at which he positioned the ship. Note that both of these artistic choices are shifts from his initial sketch; over the course of multiple drafts and feedback, this scholar revised his work for maximum impact.

Theseus and Minotaur

In this example, note that this scholar -- who at the beginning of the project characterized herself as a person with “no art skill” -- attended to details including the relative size of her characters, the use of multiple types of paper, and use of warm and cool colors. The result is a piece of work that is not only beautiful, but closely aligned to the story she has chosen to represent; in her artist’s statement, this scholar connects these artistic choices to the text she studied.

8th Grade Frederick Douglass Illustrations

In 8th grade humanities, scholars explore the history and legacy of slavery. As part of their studies, scholars read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Scholars were then given the following directions on their “Frederick Douglass Children’s Book Page” Task Card:

"Once you have finished reading The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, your task will be to write and illustrate a children’s story based on one section of the book. Your goal should be to tell about a portion of Frederick Douglass’s story in a way that will be powerful to younger students."

Click here to view the full task card. Notice that in addition to the general task card on page one, there are two “exceeding options” provided to scholars on page two. Offering exceeding options ensures that we are holding the bar high for all scholars, including those who would likely reach the “meeting bar” with ease.

Scholars could tell the portion of Frederick Douglass’ story from any character’s point of view, but needed to include writing, artwork, and an artist statement. To help scholars produce high quality illustrations, humanities teachers worked closely with the Ms. Ackerman to create a series of lessons and work sessions targeting this portion of the project. HOWLs were deeply embedded in the project and served as a lever for better work and a means for reflecting on the creative design process. The HOWLs target was “I can persevere in the design process to create powerful images.”

Here is a two-page layout of one scholar’s Frederick Douglass Children’s Story and Illustrations.

This rubric articulated criteria for storyline & content, images & presentation, use of language, author’s note, and artwork. Artwork criteria for the target “I can persevere in the design process to create powerful images” were the following:

Art piece portrays one or more powerful elements of the writing.
Pre-final product includes 3-5 pictures for research and a Placement Sketch.
Art is well-crafted and shows time, care, and concern for detail.
Art has three distinct levels of space.
Art is well-composed on the page.

To bring their illustrations to a high level of craftsmanship, scholars went through stages of a design process including planning, drafting, and finalizing. During the planning phase, scholars researched images online, were introduced to sketching, proportion and perspectives techniques, identified salient images from the text, and sketched their initial ideas. Scholars then workshopped their ideas individually and used revision notecatchers to give and receive critique with peers and teachers. Throughout the process the design teacher suggested high-leverage design strategies that helped bring scholars’ ideas to life such as: use of a light box, water activated color pencils, shading techniques, and use of space. Final artwork was paired with the stories, along with an artist statement. The images below show scholars engaged in the design process.

Fredrick Douglass Example 2

This image represents a different approach to the use of perspective and space. For this image, this artist chose to have a large plantation house take up most of the page, with a smaller image of Douglass approaching the house. This image emphasizes the impression that the house may have had on Douglass, and the importance of that home for the character. Taken together with the previous image, this page also shows the range of artistic choices that scholars made -- to have a large image or several smaller ones, for example -- while still adhering to the criteria articulated for craftsmanship.

8th Grade Space Magazine: Are We Alone?

As described in High Quality Work Claim #1, 8th grade scholars study space science and work in pairs and trios to write an article to contribute to the “Are We Alone?” space magazine. The magazine is a final product that evolved over two years. Previously, the space expedition involved scholars creating trifold displays to present in a science-fair”esque” culminating event. Scholars attended to craftsmanship of their poster presentations with support from their science teacher and design teacher. Many scholars were so focused on the details of their posters that craftsmanship focus surpassed content learning. While we cared about scholar’s production of beautiful displays that they were proud of, we cared more about guiding scholars to contribute to a product that held the bar higher for scholars’ informational writing skills.

In 2015-16 teachers shifted the space expedition product to a magazine layout that required scholars to communicate their learning through an informative article about space spinoffs. Scholars worked in groups to research and become knowledgeable about a particular space spinoff. Scholars wrote articles collaboratively using this highly structured template. Scholars also engaged in a “light” round of critique, revision, and feedback. Most of the feedback was teacher to student. There was some peer to peer feedback but lacking a strong protocol. The biggest challenge teachers noticed was that scholars resisted integrating feedback into their work unless the teacher gave really explicit direction for updates to make. The articles ended up being more “cookie-cutter” than teachers had envisioned when they designed the product originally.

In 2015-16, scholars learned about the craft of laying out a magazine article with attention to text, visuals, captions, and use of space. They met with a publication design specialist, to learn about the craft of layout design, and then experimented with Lucidpress to lay out their two-page articles. Eighth grade teachers consulted with our Technology Integration Specialist to decide on the use of Lucidpress and to learn about the online design tool to be able to teach their scholars how to use the application.

Especially since this was the first time scholars created this product, we were proud of our scholars’ end result and also learned a lot during the expedition and stages of product development. When reviewing the expedition and product, teachers and coaches noted the following stars and steps:

Stars

Steps

Magazine product was far more authentic than the tri-fold posters made in previous years.

Use of technology to assist with the collaborative writing and design process; Lucidpress was an effective tool.

Use of an expert to support the instruction of craftsmanship.

Printing quality was great and cost effective; team discussed sticking with same printing vendor.

The magazine format was much easier to save a model than the tri-fold displays; team discussed 2016-17 scholars identifying stars/steps of the model to improve the next year’s product.

Spinoffs, while fun and interesting, wasn’t quite as aligned with state science standards as we’d like -- we need to better align with science content; in addition, the product didn’t answer the expedition’s guiding questions -- oops!

Scholars working in pairs/trios to write an article collaboratively made it challenging to assess individual work; team discussed having each scholar write their own article and then collaborate to pull elements from each into into a coherent, publishable piece.

Writing quality was variable; team identified the need for improved writing instruction as well as more peer feedback.

Lucidpress took a while for scholars to get used to; team noted a need for a lesson on Lucidpress formatting and time for practice.

Teachers met over the summer of 2016 to make revisions to the 2016-17 Space Expedition and product. They determined that the end product would again be a magazine but shifted the focus of scholars’ articles in order to better align the expedition content with Massachusetts science and technology standards. Instead of focusing on space spinoffs, scholars would focus on the question, “Are we alone?” and -- after building substantial background knowledge about space science -- would research a variety of celestial bodies in order to determine whether they have the capacity to sustain life. This year, scholars would truly answer the guiding question through their collaboratively designed magazine.

Teachers and their math/science coach also worked with the Director of Teaching and Learning (previously humanities coach) to plan a series of lessons guiding scholars through the writing process so that their experience writing their space article aligned with their writing experiences in humanities classes. Whereas in 2015-16 scholars started by writing collaboratively with one highly structured organizer, in 2016-17, scholars began by writing independently. Teachers offered scholars a choice between a structured organizer with space for writing and a more independent guide to planning their article, which prevented the articles from being too repetitive and “cookie cutter”. After writing their own articles, scholars worked in pairs and trios to combine their articles into one.

In 2016-17 the team set HOWLs targets that focused on revision, critique, and feedback: 1) I can give kind, specific, and helpful feedback; 2) I can improve my work based on the feedback I receive. Teachers set these HOWLs targets because the previous year they found that scholars gave and received feedback but struggled to integrate the feedback into their writing. In order to emphasize the importance of using feedback to make revisions, scholars skyped with two scientific writers. David Hewitt, former NASA rocket scientist and current propulsion engineer who regularly engages in professional writing was one of the two experts. He stressed the importance of accepting feedback and writing in a way that engages the reader.

Teachers used this Space Expedition Planning Map to sequence lesson topics. Starting on page four, you’ll see the sequence of lessons that break up the writing process, peer review and revisions, and article layout with Lucidpress. A few things to highlight in this planning document:

Notice the front-loading of lessons on writing a scientific article, layout/design (with expert), and introduction to Lucid press; these lessons aimed to give scholars a big picture understanding of where their product was heading. Scholars were introduced to Lucidpress early so that they were familiar with the tool prior to using it for formatting their article.
Notice the alternating peer review, revision, peer review, revision: this gave scholars protected time to integrate feedback by revising their articles.
Then, after their articles were formatted with Lucidpress, scholars engaged in another round of peer review and revision to ensure that the article was ready for publication.

Scholars gave each other feedback on the paragraph level by using a peer feedback form for a paragraph about Mars. Then, having had that practice giving specific feedback on the paragraph level, scholars used a more detailed peer feedback form to give one another stars and steps for their articles as a whole. Click here for a sample progression of student writing that shows one group of scholars’ improvements to their article over the course of the expedition. The scholars moved from summaries of facts gleaned from research to an article, “Camping on Callisto,” that pulled their research together in an interesting and informative way: “Have you ever thought of being able to take a summer vacation beyond the stars? Well, the possibility of life beyond the realms of our atmosphere has been a profound issues for a very long time. Fortunately, Jupiter’s crystallized satellite gives us hope.”

When their articles were polished, scholars shifted into the design phase, applying their early practice with Lucidpress to their actual article layout. Teachers provided scholars with a few templates in Lucidpress to choose from and taught scholars how to do the GoogleDoc to Lucidpress text transfer which required some specific formatting techniques. Scholars also found images with higher pixilation to ensure that they’d print well. Compared with in 2015-16, scholars took ownership of their article’s design much more and as a result, the products looked much more professional.

Notice the front-loading of lessons on writing a scientific article, layout/design (with expert), and introduction to Lucid press; these lessons aimed to give scholars a big picture understanding of where their product was heading. Scholars were introduced to Lucidpress early so that they were familiar with the tool prior to using it for formatting their article.
Notice the alternating peer review, revision, peer review, revision: this gave scholars protected time to integrate feedback by revising their articles.
Then, after their articles were formatted with Lucidpress, scholars engaged in another round of peer review and revision to ensure that the article was ready for publication.

Teachers’ revisions to the expedition and sequence of lessons guided improvement to the quality of the of the 2016-17 magazine. However, the most impactful change was guiding scholars to own their learning and quality of work through independent writing, consolidation of writing into team articles, layout design and formatting, and multiple sessions of peer review. As you can see in the 2016-17 magazine compared with the 2015-16 magazine, articles are more engaging and interesting to read, articles answer the question “Are we alone?” and the design of the pages is more professional. We are proud of our scholars and teachers for raising the bar higher and higher each year to create beautiful work that illustrates understanding of complex space science topics. And we look forward to a McAuliffe scholar -- one day -- taking his or her learning to the next level by journeying into our space system with the aim to explore one these celestial bodies written about in the 2017 publication of “Are we alone?”!

High Quality Work: Claim 2

McAuliffe scholars create beautiful work across grade levels and assignment type.

“My teachers helped me to push me do things that I would never expect myself, like drawing a realistic shoe and digging deep into shoe company research and policies.” - Claire E., Current 7th Grade

6th Grade Shoe Illustrations

7th Grade Mythology Illustrations and Artist Statement

8th Grade Frederick Douglass Illustrations

8th Grade Space Magazine: Are We Alone?