Blueprints: A Guide for 16 Independent Study Projects

How often has it happened that your students have gotten halfway through a project and given up, abandoning the half-finished project? Students usually start a project with great interest and vision as to what the final project will be like. Sometime between the initial assignment and the final due date, however, frustration sets in. This often happens because students have not acquired the organizational skills to be able to break a project into smaller, manageable pieces and systematically tackle each little piece of the project one at a time. Now you can take the guesswork out of independent or assigned study projects. Blueprints provides complete step-by-step directions for 16 different projects, including:

• written reports,
• models,
• debates,
• experiments,
• books,
• demonstrations,
• learning centers,
• multimedia projects,
• problem solutions,
• speeches,
• posters,
• surveys,
• displays,
• games,
• special events, and
• science projects.

Each unit gives a brief description of the project and then outlines each step students should take, from selecting a topic, to making a presentation. The teacher's section includes additional information on each project and criteria for evaluation. The versatile, easy-to-use format can be used in several different ways to structure group projects, guide individual study projects, or provide a blueprint for your lesson plans. This practical approach leads to successful projects every time.

One teacher said, "If the school burned down, this is the one book I would grab on the way out of the building." That's quite a recommendation!