Submitted by: Nicholas Olson
Collaborators: Nora Case
School: Fairfield Middle School
Summary
The US Mail Race is a great way for students to review the 50 states while getting a more personal view of one particular state. This project also has students practice writing skills, researching skills, among many other real world skills like letter writing and communication.
TIPC Ratings
In this lesson, the teacher has designed a challenge that promotes synthesis from multiple resources (Google maps, personal experiences, databases in OneSearch, responses from students, school websites). Students have received prior instruction on utilizing databases and choosing resources. Students utilize information gathered from research to develop questions within their letter.
Students utilize a word processor to create a letter to students outside of their own classroom. Students have limited supervision in collaborating outside of their classroom. Students also participated in peer editing of the rough draft. Some of the letters may contain grammatical errors as a result.
Students are asked to solve a fairly higher level problem in this lesson. They must synthesize information and build their own questions to create a letter to a student in a middle school in a different geographic area of the United States. They utilize digital tools in research and in synthesis.
Students have a wide range of options while choosing middle schools, states, and while crafting their letters. However, the final product is a letter with fairly specific requirements as demonstrated by the template in the teacher directions.
Student Artifacts
Click image to download student samples.
Download Files
Contents:
- Lesson Plan
- Cover Letter
- Student Letter Template
- Samples from FMS Students
- Responses to FMS Students
