The Monumental Project

My sister Jean teaches English and writing in middle school. Every year, the class goes on a trip to Washington D.C., which is a huge ordeal, involving chaperones, and crowd-control, and dealing with little kids who basically have never been out of Rhode Island and don’t know how to cross a street at a crosswalk. Jean has been doing this trip for years, so she pretty much has it down to a science now. Prepping the kids, all that stuff.

One of her assignments that she gives them is to write their first real research paper. They can use one online source, but other than that, they have to find stuff in books. They have to do proper footnotes and attribution. She walks them through it, giving suggestions (“If you find an appropriate quote, you could lead off the paper with it …”). The research paper has to be on one of the national monuments, and she assigns them out to the kids. She has learned, through experience, that Arlington is a very difficult topic – its history being what it is – so she always gives that to a kid who she thinks is up to the challenge. Or, she’ll have them do it in pairs.

She was telling me all about this project the last time I was home, and the best thing about the project is this:

These kids spend a couple of weeks researching their monument. They get to know it. In a way, through this process, they get to feel like they “own” it – as indeed they do. So then, when they all go to D.C., the kids have this incredibly excited and personal response to their specific monument. They get to see in person what they had described in writing.

The papers had all just come in that week when I was home, so she was telling me about some of the best ones, and telling me about the kids who really “got” the project. Some don’t – there are lots of levels of ability in her class.

She told me about how she coached the kids. This is, after all, their first research paper. Up until now, they have only had to write one or two paragraphs on something they have read, giving their opinion. This is different. I remember when things started getting serious in middle school (we called it junior high), when you could feel high school looming ahead of you, and you really had to get your study preparation techniques together.

She broke the paper down for them, to give them an idea of structure for the research paper. Start with a quote that sums up the whole thing. Give an overview of the monument, what it is, where it is.

Next paragraph: Talk about the man (or event) that the monument stands for. Who was George Washington? What is the Library of Congress? What is the history of the Supreme Court?

Next paragraph: Talk about the creation of the monument. When was it decided upon? How long did it take to build?

Last paragraph: Jean calls this the “national significance” paragraph. What does it stand for, what does it mean, why is it (the monument and the man) important? Now these are pre-teens. They perhaps are only used to gushing about the boy they have a crush on, or gushing about Miley Cyrus. Jean says to them, “Make this last paragraph a Hallmark Card to America. Go really really gushy – I want to feel like singing the National Anthem when I finish reading the last paragraph.”

With kids of this age, if you tell them to go “too far”, most of the time they will then approximate the tone you want. They aren’t used to going over-the-top. You want to cover your ass. You can’t wear your heart on your sleeve. Middle school is brutal! So Jean gives them permission to go “really really gushy”.

When I was last home, some of the papers had already come in, and Jean was raving about them, how well the kids had done, how great they had worked. I wanted to hear everything. Who were the kids who knocked it out of the park? What were they like? She gave me two of them to read: the kid who had been assigned Arlington National Cemetery and the kid who had been assigned the Library of Congress. Like I mentioned, the Arlington kid is one of the smartest kids in her class, so she knew he could handle the complicated beginnings of Arlington, and the girl who had been assigned Library of Congress is a huge reader, and a real smarty-pants.

I know this sounds so goofy but I read their papers (all typewritten, of course), and found myself literally choking back tears. Their little footnotes: they all went to Wikipedia first, but then you could see their credit to encyclopedias and other books in the library. They ALL started with a quote – great tip, Jean – I still think it’s powerful and interesting to start a paper with a quote, a good launching-point. And the kids had somehow figured out the perfect quote to choose. The quotes were relevant. Good job.

I seriously was so moved reading these papers. The girl who wrote the Library of Congress paper went all out. Her description of the creation of the Library of Congress is well-known to me, and she got all the particulars right. She also went hog-wild with numerical descriptions. “There are 2,567,901 volumes in the Library of Congress and every 5 minutes 287 more titles are added.” (I made those numbers up, but that gives you an idea). I also loved (as in: I was a weepy mess) her explanation about the Gutenberg Bibles included in the Library of Congress (a tween who even knows what that is? Bestill my heart) – and she helpfully explains: “They are made of vellum (calf-skin).” The parenthetical kills me. I don’t mean to sound condescending. I am saying that it truly kills me.

Her “Hallmark Card” paragraph was a masterpiece, an emotional prose-poem to the beauty of reading, and having all books available to all, for the present generations, and forever more.

Kudos.

The Arlington kid didn’t get quite as gushy (he’s a boy, so he kept a lid on it – as Jean knew he would) – but he handled all of the steps of the creation of that land perfectly, and his Hallmark Card paragraph spoke movingly about “remembering the men and women who have fought for our country….”

I have tears in my eyes. This is the best project I have ever heard of.

Just imagine this young girl and this young boy – now getting to SEE the Library of Congress and the Cemetery – and how amazing that will be for them.

Jean told me over the phone that another paper had come in, this one about the Jefferson Memorial. As Alexander Hamilton is my “dead boyfriend”, Jefferson is Jean’s “dead boyfriend” – which she informed the class – she calls him her “Revolutionary boyfriend”, and they all just thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. “Mrs. W has a Revolutionary boyfriend – tee hee!” So she tried to impress on the girl assigned Thomas Jefferson: “He’s a tough one. A tough one to write about and to nail down.” She assured her that she could handle it.

Jean sent me the paper a couple of days ago and said to me, “Check out the final paragraph!”

The “Hallmark Card” paragraph.

Obviously I cannot post it here on the Internet, since this is a child’s school assignment, but Jean and I were both just CRYING reading it – with laughter and also emotion. This kid WENT for it. “Okay, you want a Hallmark Card to Thomas Jefferson? Fine. Here it is.” The final paragraph just reiterated over and over what a great man Jefferson was – but here’s the best part: the girl explained why she thought that way. She wasn’t being blindly obedient to her teacher – she knew: Okay. So let me think about this a bit, and try to figure out WHY there is a monument for him.

She just poured on the syrup, and gushed about him – he was seriously, according to this sweet young tween, the greatest man who had ever lived because of this, this and this. This girl took the coaching and ran with it.

A nice antidote to the whole Texas Textbook nonsense, I might add. Jean and I were just crying with laughter and emotion.

The language of the papers is naturally 12-year-old language, but they did really excellent jobs, all of them, and they are all now heading down to Washington D.C., as we speak, to spend a week there, seeing all of these monuments, and I’m just excited for all of them. I can’t wait to get an update from Jean this weekend when I go home for Good Friday.