It is important to note that these choices are guided or controlled. But we also control that. We tell students, the last four times you did a project, you have done a visual representation. Let's see if we can' t have you do something in another format. In each of the school's classrooms, a long-term investigation of a topic was underway.
Children explore the topic in various substantive ways.
For example, in one classroom in which spiders were the topic, children could make large models of spiders, create computer drawing of spiders, develop a spider game based on spider facts, survey classmates about spiders and graph their survey results. These choices allowed children to draw on a range of intelligences to build their understanding. Many spontaneously came to us to explain what they had done and why their arachnids looked and behaved as they did. In the river study at the McCleary School , students visited, observed, and sketched rivers. Their classrooms included collections of artwork involving rivers.