Genius Hour has arrived in Room 706

I recently met my 11th set of AP English students. I’m already impressed by their curiosity, their enthusiasm and their mad skills.

And I’m already worried that I’m not going to do right by them.

I’ve never been happy with my exam scores. Once, I had a huge increase in the rate of 3s, 4s, and 5s. And since then, the scores have gone back to where they’ve hovered most years.

I’m ready to try something revolutionary.

Enter: Genius Hour.

But before I chat about the hows, let me address the whys.

I don’t want my kids to score 3s or better because it would make me look good. In the California State University system, a 3 or better on the AP English Language and Composition exam earns a kid SIX units of credit. SIX.

Those six units could make the difference in a student heading off to a CSU and ultimately entering the workforce and community as a college-educated adult. Or deciding that the cost of college is too high. (And, for a lot of our kids, that’s just what it looks like. What they have to pay for school these days should make us all vomit. That’s another blog.)

That 3 might mean the student confidently heads off into AP English Literature and Composition their senior year, where they can earn ANOTHER SIX units. Starting school with 12 college credits makes the financial math look really good. I know. That’s how my daughter started college.

Now, I could go on and on about why my students struggle to “pass” this exam - the demographics, language-rich vs. language-poor environments, blah, blah, blah. Those things are real and have a real effect on my kids. But those are things I have very little control over.

I have a ton of control over what happens in my classroom.

With Genius Hour, I hope they nurture a passion, make connections to all kinds of passionate people, living and dead, who use their words and their passion to move mountains, and see how it all fits together.

Here are the nuts and bolts:

1. What is Genius Hour? In my classroom, students will have one hour every Friday to work on a project of their choosing.

2. How are students graded? My students will give a 60-second pitch on their project next month and a final project presentation at the end of the semester. They will blog regularly throughout. They will be graded on the process, not the product.

3. How does a teacher get started?

1. I borrowed heavily from Laura Randazzo, who has excellent free materials just waiting for you at TeachersPayTeachers. And she wrote it down RIGHT HERE!

2. By now, you may have noticed that I’m obsessed with “Hamilton”. To launch the project, we watched the opening number from the musical and the PBS interview with playwright and lyricist and myth and hero Lin-Manuel Miranda.

3. We discussed his quote, “What's the thing that's not in the world that should be in the world?”

4. Flip through slides about 3M and Google and the results of their 20-percent policies.

5. Boom! It’s time for kids to start brainstorming.

And, indeed, they did. On the way out the door, students gave me exit slips with their ideas. Super ideas. Exciting ideas!

Here are a few:

So, what’s the downside? I have no idea.

I’m learning along with my kids.

How much fun is that?!

Stay tuned ...

(If you'd like me to share my Genius Hour Google folder with you, email me at runteachsleeprepeat.@gmail.com)