6th Grade Students Accept Weekly Challenges From Author as Part of “Project Writeway”

With the guidance of renowned author Hope Anita Smith, the 6th grade students are working on a poetry unit entitled “Project Writeway.”  Much like the popular TV show Project Runway, each week students are presented with a new challenge asking them to, “work within the lines, but think outside the box” as 6th Grade Language Arts Teacher Meg Smith puts it.  The overall theme of the unit is community and “self-reflection and community goes way beyond the realm of language arts, Meg Smith says.

For their first challenge, students were presented with various types of fabric swatches and asked to take inspiration from the patterns or the feel of the fabric and then expand on their description.  They were challenged to take what they saw and think about broader ideas and concepts.  For example, how a piece of fabric with individual dots might make up a larger design when view together as whole and how this might relate to diverse members making up a family or  a community.