Novel Trading Cards

Today, I started working on a project with our 9th grade English teacher. We are having the students create trading cards for the characters from a novel. The novel is The Pigman and there are 12 characters that were assigned. I made a template in Microsoft Publisher and saved it to the network drive here at school.
On the back of the card, the students are supposed to describe the characters' appearance and personality. They were also asked to include any other details they felt were important. Then the student will develop an image of the character in their head. They will find a picture of an actor/actress that they would cast for the role if the book was remade as a movie. The picture is going to be placed on the front of the card along with the character's name, the book title, and an important quote from the character. Once, their 12 characters are finished, they will save them to a shared network drive and I will print them on a color laser printer.
Here are some questions I think you might have and I would like to address them now.
1. Why did I create a template for Highschool kids that a capable of creating it from scratch?
2. Why I am spending time printing them instead of having the students print them?
3. What about the actor/actress photos and copyright.

#1 I created the template because we wanted the students to focus their time and energy on analyzing the characters, not playing around trying to make the card pretty. I have done activities in the past where students had too much creative freedom and they lost sight of the task at hand. If they finish early and want to change the layout and fonts, that will fine. I believe students need creative freedom because it allows them to express themselves and it allow them to take "ownership" of the project. But, we need to make sure they are meeting the objectives before we allow them to "play". At the rate they are moving, I believe that most of the students will have plenty of time to add a personal touch to their cards.
#2 I don't like to see instruction time wasted on "clerical" work. Either I will print them or I will have a student assistant print them. Keep in mind, we are printing these to a color laser printer that has restricted access.
#3 The students are using these photos for educational purposes and they are citing the source directly under the picture on the trading card. These cards will not be sold or distributed in any way.

This is only the first day of the activity and it has gone surprisingly well. The teacher I am working with is having two of her classes complete this activity. In both classes, there was a significant number of students who asked if they could stay during their lunch and free time to continue working on the activity because they like it so much. I was AMAZED! I taught these same exact students when they were in seventh and eighth grade and I have never seen them this excited about a particular project.

I cannot take credit for the success of the activity. I created the template and suggested the activity, but the English teacher has done most of the work. She has spent ample time planning for this activity and helping the students find the necessary information in the novel. If it wasn't for the English teachers dedication, the activity could have bombed.

Embedded Learning Year 2 Course Outline

This entry is for those of you involved with Classrooms for the Future in PA. I created an outline/checklist for teachers taking the second Embedded Learning Course (Teaching Authentic). The reason I did this is because some teachers were clicking continue and accidentally skipping some of the Learning Log entries and/or the Sync Point Discussions. This way, they had a sheet that they could check off after each activity. Last year, it wasn't as hard to catch the thing they missed and have them go back and do them later. But, this year, with new CFF teachers involved with the first class and facilitating two separate "year 2" classes (one for math and one for science), I found it a little harder to catch everything as quickly as I did last year.

I posted the checklist on my wiki as a PDF. Here is a direct link. If you want to use it or even change it, feel free. If you need it as a Word Doc for easy editing, let me know and I can email it to you