These are answers to the most frequently asked questions about the Pareto Project. Make sure you are familiar with the guide first:
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I required to present my work?
No. The guide tells you that your final product is yours to design, so your project could take just about any form you imagine. What happens, I think, is that the time set aside for these projects — see this 2018-2019 calendar for an example — is dominated by talk of presentations. That’s because we have to schedule those, reserve spaces (like the school’s iTheater), and talk to presenters about time constraints. It takes more planning than, say, sharing a collection of poetry or publishing a website.
What do I do if students don’t pay attention to my presentation?
This is an important question. The short answer is: Ignore them, focus on your work, and let your teachers handle the behavior. Part of the GAP scoring language addresses this. In fact, a criterion for lower profiles is not investing in the classroom environment:
These are the profiles that correspond with failing grades. Look carefully at the idea of deliberate disengagement. Any student who, after being instructed not to, ignores your presentation is risking failure. We’ll take care of that feedback.
The longer answer is this: Be empathetic to the people who aren’t respectful of your work. Many factors go into that decision, whether it results in being on a phone while someone is talking or something more overt. Those folks aren’t excused from the bad decision, but it’s not a decision that has anything to do with you. It’s about them.
Am I required to share my project, if I don’t present?
No. You are strongly encouraged to share your work to some extent, just to give yourself the authentic experience of having others react to your project. The passion that hopefully inspired you to create your project deserves an audience. It doesn’t require one, however, and some projects are intensely personal, or works-in-progress that would be difficult to share right now, or for some other reason less in need of sharing. If you keep in mind the goals of all assessment in the makerspace, you’ll be able to determine what you need to do.
How else can I share my work?
The guide gives you a few options, including Medium, which is the most likely host for written work of all kinds. Medium is also mentioned in this overview of the end of the writing process, which is similarly about sharing your work. There are other online platforms, of course, and you could use any of them to share your project. You’ll know about Instagram for photography, but you might consider VSCO. If you’re writing stories, Wattpad is an option.
The focus on digital options is all about interstitial access — about giving students an audience beyond the classroom and the period. Think of how widely shared TED Talks are, or how often a powerful piece of writing makes its way around social media. That’s important for all of you. The in-class, in-person options are just as important, however, from hanging artwork on the walls to leading your peers through a discussion.
What should I do if I won’t have finished my project by the deadline?
If you haven’t made this clear already, make it clear to your teacher. You’ll need help determining exactly what to do. Fortunately, you aren’t required to present, share, submit, etc., an unfinished project. Rushing something into being isn’t required, either. Instead, you’ll do what we often do: You’ll focus on the process, discuss and write about your ultimate goals for this project, and submit that reflective and metacognitive work.
Is writing about my progress on the project enough for the due date?
I’m including this question separately to reiterate the point: We are almost always more interested in the process than the product, if we must choose between the two. It’s Postman’s idea, which I repeatedly post: The most important thing we learn is always something about how we learn. The products matter, but the process often matters more, especially at your ages.
You also indicated, when you designed your blueprint through the original guide, separate learning and product goals. Everyone, regardless of situation, will write about both of those as part of their Pareto Project.
Will my grade be affected if I do not share my project with others?
No. As always, your grade is determined every three or four weeks by the GAP process, which is detailed here. These Pareto Projects are part of a triptych panel, and we fold it into the assessment like we would any other formal assignment. It’s worth noting, though, that these projects — any project-based work, really, especially 20 Time projects — incorporate every single universal skill and trait. That’s why the complete set of skills and traits is embedded in the original guide: Your Pareto Project is a reflection of your holistic strengths, including every “soft” or non-academic skill and trait. A presentation grade wouldn’t reflect that.
I would like to get feedback from students about my project/presentation. How can I do that?
You have several options. The first is to share your work with your peers through Google Drive, Medium, etc., and to ask for specific feedback. This would work for written projects, slideshows, websites, and other artifacts that are accessible outside of a presentation environment. If you’re presenting, you’ll want to structure some follow-up discussion or feedback, which I’ll help you to do. It can be as immediate as a Q&A after you’ve presented or as in-depth as a formally-assigned writing prompt. As always, you need to know what you want out of that feedback.
Are there guidelines for what non-presenters should complete?
Again, your grade is still a GAP score based on much more than just these projects. Your project’s guidelines should already be clear to you, too, which means what you complete will vary from person to person. You might have guidelines for publishing a story, sharing your progress on an essay, hanging your artwork — it depends.
For everyone, however, there will be a required pair of writing responses addressing your product and learning goals, respectively. You’ll be given those to work on during the two-week block of time, but only after you’re ready. The prompts will be universal, but how you approach your responses will be almost completely individualized.
What will we do when we’re not presenting during the designated two-week block of time?
See the above answer. You’ll also be given an English unit to complete interstitially, using the resources of the classroom to read, think, and write on a particular subject. It might be a series of units, too, depending on where we are in the year and what else you need. We will almost always have enough time during those two weeks to circle up for discussion, read a short story, do some test prep, etc., because not everyone in every class is presenting formally.
Examples of these concurrent units (to give you an idea of what to expect):
- English 11, 2018: Reading, analyzing, and emulating a series of short stories, plus some brief Regents Exam practice
- English 10, 2018: Analyzing and responding to student-chosen novels, plus revisions of literary analysis paragraphs
- AP English, 2018: Deconstructing the article, “Yes, Virginia,” and practicing timed essays