Back to Index


Project Excerpts & Commentary: N.I.C.E. Project

The Story Behind the N.I.C.E. Project

After reading In The Year of The Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord, the students made books based on interviews with immigrants in their community. The student books included funny stories that were similar to the stories in the novel. The teacher then asked the class the question, “What could we do to make our school a better place for new immigrant children?” The students decided to create a schoolwide system that would make their school a better place for students who had recently arrived from another country. They named their project the N.I.C.E. project, the acronym standing for New Immigrant Committee for Education. They worked on the project for nine weeks and planned to implement it in the following school year.

This project illustrates a standard-setting performance for the following parts of the standards:
a Communication: Make an oral presentation.
b Communication: Compose correspondence.
c Communication: Publish information.
c Learning and Self-management: Identify strengths and weaknesses in own work

 

To begin, the students interviewed recently arrived students, they spoke with the principal, teachers and wrote letters to additional adults who could help them, e.g., the librarian and the bilingual teacher. After they collected all of the information from the interviews they brainstormed a list of suggestions for improving the school. They then narrowed the list down to three ideas and decided to focus on them.

  1. Creating a buddy system
  2. Designing welcome posters in different languages
  3. Creating dialogues in different language
The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.

It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.

What the work shows
a Communication Tools and Techniques: The student makes an oral presentation of project plans or findings to an appropriate audience; that is, the student:

• organizes the presentation in a logical way appropriate to its purpose;
• speaks clearly and presents confidently;
• responds to questions from the audience;
• evaluates the effectiveness of the presentation.

In order to begin planning their “Buddy Up” system for students newly arrived from other countries, the students created a proposal which they presented orally to the principal in order to secure his permission. This draft of the proposal reflects the students’ efforts to develop a logical order for their presentation.

The students divided up the parts of the presentation so that a number of students could be involved. They had an introductory part which gave the principal some background information on the whole project. They then told him about their plans for the buddy system.

After their presentation, they answered some of the principal’s questions. One of the students recreated the exchange between the principal and the student by means of captions on photographs taken during the presentation.

Although the students did not have any formal evaluation procedure in place, the teacher recorded notes on the principal’s reaction to the presentation. The principal was impressed with the presentation and gave several suggestions to refine the proposal. He reminded the students about the H.I.L.S. or Home Inventory Language Surveys that are routinely collected from the students. These surveys, he told the students, could be used to gather information in preparation for setting up the buddy system.

b Communication Tools and Techniques: The student composes and sends correspondence, such as thank-you letters and memoranda providing information; that is, the student:

• expresses the information or request clearly;
• writes in a style appropriate to the purpose of the correspondence.

The students wrote a letter to the principal asking his permission to put a poster up in the lobby to welcome students. They also asked for his help in thinking about some other things they could do to make the school a better place for students who have recently arrived in the country.

This letter expressed the information and the request clearly. The format of the letter is appropriate for the purpose of the correspondence.

The reply from the principal, included here, shows that the principal not only understood the letter but also took time to suggest some other ways that the students could make new students welcome to the school.

The students also produced letters thanking people who helped them complete the project. Among these was a thank-you letter to the librarian for her help with researching the different languages. The form and style are appropriate for a thank-you note of this kind.

c Communication Tools and Techniques: The student writes and formats information for short publications, such as brochures or posters; that is, the student:

• organizes the information into an appropriate form for use in the publication;
• checks the information for accuracy;
• formats the publication so that it achieves its purpose.

The students designed posters to be displayed around the school.

The students had to do some background research before they began the posters. They tracked down some students and teachers who spoke languages other than English and asked them to help with the translation. They thought about what images to use to make each of the different newcomers feel welcome. Before they put the posters up, they double checked the information for accuracy.


 

c Learning and Self-management Tools and Techniques: The student identifies strengths and weaknesses in his or her own work; that is, the student:

• understands and establishes criteria for judging the quality of work processes and products;
• assesses his or her own work processes and products.

The students decided to create a criteria matrix to help them develop effective posters. They then decided to have a competition among themselves to see which poster was the best using their own criteria.

The criteria for the part of the Applied Learning standards that relate to writing and formatting information for publication
(c) are built into the matrix. For example, “Formats the information so that it achieves its purpose,” is apparent in the question “Will it make the immigrant feel welcome?”

 

Back to Index