New Paltz Middle School Final Projects

After getting some very sensitive secrets from our students, Melinda and I, along with our mentor teacher Kim Sturgis, decided to bring the focus of our lesson toward a more positive goal.  Students were to remember their secrets, and come up with how the bullying situation could be resolved, or how students could be an ally to those who are bullied.

We ended up getting some really great projects at the end!
Each grade did the project a little bit differently:

6th Grade: Brainstorm slogans and images that would help others recognize the issue of bullying and create a design for the front of a t-shirt.  The most successful projects would be combined to create a collage peace sign for a shirt that will be sold as a fund raiser.

7th Grade: Created wordle posters from words and slogans that described an ally and how they could be an ally for someone who is bullied.  The students each chose a place in the school to post their poster. A few chose in the cafeteria, in the hallways, and in the bathrooms.

8th Grade:  Students recorded video of different bullying situations and worked either alone or in groups to edit the film to create a bullying awareness video.  Some chose to change color, add quotes, and add music to the video.  

Overall, the students learned a lot...and I know that I did as well!  It was really exciting to see the changes to the original idea actually play out into something that I feel was even better than it would have been before!

Thanks Kim Sturgis for such a great learning process!