As I mentioned before, giving choice for a project is also a wonderful way to promote creativity and student confidence. We read the novel Bud, Not Buddy in my co-taught sixth grade reading class. As the “final project”, we offered an extensive list of project choices all worth a certain point value depending on their difficulty. We used differentiation by offering project choices that could be kinesthetic, technology-based, musically-based and other endless choices with a point value set for each. We also differentiated by fluctuating the amount of points each student needed to earn a successful grade based on their readiness level. By giving the students a number of points they must achieve, it allowed them to choose any projects that interested them the most. My favorite example was a student who wrote a song I videotaped above. It was a struggle for him to find a project that worked for him at first until we came to the option where he could write a song. He and I were able to talk and realize that he was getting into episodes of “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” lately and actually knew the theme song by heart. Once those juices got flowing, he produced the funniest summary/rendition of Buddy in the shed in the backyard. Enjoy!
