Compose Our World

Learn how to develop and sustain multimodal, project-based learning (PBL) instruction in secondary English Language Arts classrooms. National standards encourage authentic forms of reading, writing, and communication that can support college and career readiness, and this book highlights PBL as a powerful way to harness students' interests and engage them in academically rigorous learning. The authors provide specific, research-informed curricular approaches and instructional guidance for classroom teachers, as well as an overview of the dimensions of PBL that are often overlooked in the broad expectations of inquiry-based teaching. Instead of "quick fix" lessons, Compose Our World explores how core dimensions of equitable teaching—such as social and emotional support, universal design for learning, and cultivating classroom community—function as the bedrock for student success in PBL contexts and beyond.Book Features: Based on the authors' extensive experience developing and studying a PBL curriculum. Brings PBL to life through classroom vignettes and teacher and student voices. Provides classroom resources that facilitate customization to unique contexts. Shares ideas for developing teacher communities around PBL practices. Offers additional curriculum materials online. Appropriate for ELA teachers new to PBL, as well as veterans.

" Compose Our World offers English teachers welcome hope in these difficult times. In its pages, we see students--and teachers--whose experiences in school have been transformed by a turn toward meaningful projects they design and work through themselves, projects that can even change their communities for the better. And although these projects are not made primarily for a grade, the authors describe how students can be brought in on generating the specific criteria used for assessment. The work certainly fulfills state standards, but it goes far beyond them. This important book, which should be read by all high school English teachers, is both inspiring and practical. It shows that positive change in education is possible, provides practical guides to that change, and features exciting projects students made as they became agents for composing their world."--Teachers College Record

Alison G. Boardman is an associate professor in equity, bilingualism, and biliteracy in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Antero Garcia is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Bridget Dalton is an associate professor in literacy studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Joseph L. Polman is a professor of learning sciences and associate dean for research in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder.