As we near the end of our year together as a virtual Reading and Language Arts class, I have high hopes for the students’ Genius Hour projects. It is not an easy task—monitoring one’s own learning—no matter where, or for what. I am asking this of all the students.

Something that is posing a struggle for many of them is understanding how to record where they go and what they do when they work to LEARN and GROW. I am asking that they LOG their “tracks,” like the bread crumb trail left by Hansel and Gretel. Because they are new to this enterprise, they are struggling to leave a path for me to follow. Without that, I cannot give them project points along the way. I will go over this problem again today. This is a process with points earned along the way, not a project with all the points on the final “Show What You Know.”

The blog posts are a way to incorporate checkpoints in the process. When I would offer Genius Hour/20% Time options to my eighth graders (you can see some evidence of that in the “Past Blogs” tab of navigation here), they told me that more frequent check-ins would help them stay honest, to actually DO something with the time they were given. I am taking their advice!

I encourage parents to read the blogs and comment. Nothing makes a writer develop with more intention than knowing that someone is reading his or her work with true interest. As much as I try to be that authentic audience for each of them, I do, by definition, have a different role. Fortunately their peers are reading and commenting as part of this process, too!

We’ll keep you posted on our progress. Thanks for joining us on this journey.