INTRODUCTION TO HIGH QUALITY WORK AT FOUR RIVERS

Our claims are:

STUDENT WORK AT FOUR RIVERS HAS DEMONSTRATED INCREASED ARTISTRY AND CRAFTSMANSHIP, PRODUCTS THAT USE COMPLEX TEXTS AND EVIDENCE-BASED WRITING, AND AN INCREASED DIVERSITY OF PRODUCT FORMATS.
STUDENTS APPLY WHAT THEY ARE LEARNING ABOUT EVENTS AND ISSUES HAPPENING IN THE WORLD BEYOND THE CLASSROOM TO CREATE PRODUCTS THAT SERVE TO EDUCATE OTHERS AND ADVOCATE FOR THE COMMON GOOD.
STUDENTS AT FOUR RIVERS ARE VERY SKILLED AS COMMUNICATORS AND PRESENTERS.

As evidence to support these claims, we have shared student work from the following projects and expeditions:

When Four Rivers was founded in 2003, the school leaders and faculty were united in the belief that our students should do work that has a real audience. We knew if they understood that in order for it to be useful or meaningful to their audience it had to be of the highest quality. And if that were true, they would not only value their schooling, but would also see themselves as effective, contributing members of the community beyond the walls of the school. This is what we were driven to do with our students from the very start, which is now beautifully captured in EL’s definition of high quality work.

Below are links to the Four Rivers products that are archived in the Models of Excellence site. All of these are products from our first few years, when we were establishing for our students what we meant by high quality work.

Here, too, are links to the Harvard video series “Illuminating Standards.” One project, “The Wolf Who Would Forgive” has been documented several times by Harvard Graduate students, and most recently, included in the series as a video. Note: By the time students at Harvard selected these models, the Four Rivers students who had created them had graduated and moved on. None of them were available to be featured speakers.

Here is a link to a description of these products when seen through the lens of the EL attributes of high quality work.

These are early examples of ways Four Rivers teachers and students pursued high quality work. From the start we were driven by the interest and belief in the value of high quality work and our earliest products show that. It has been challenging to show growth in this area because all but two of our early publications ended up as models of excellence and had we submitted them, the other two could have, as well. But as our school developed, we made the following observations that helped us to determine our next steps for quality student work:

While all students contributed their individual work to the publications, during the final editing and production fewer students had meaningful roles.
All students developed skills in editing transcripts into monologues, which includes a lot of practice and skill-building in mechanics but did not involve much original thinking on the part of the students, nor did they engage in reading complex texts as part of their learning.
The creation of high quality products was more established in the middle school program than in the high school.
Almost all of our products were limited to publications, and thus the skills that were required to produce them.

We set our sights on developing products that engaged all students from start to finish. We began to look for new formats and product ideas, and we also focused more on the high school curriculum. It was important to us that our students read inspiring, informative and complex texts, do original writing and develop skills in communication - both in writing and speaking. That's where we focused our efforts in the past several years. Here is a link to an analysis of the more recent products shared in the HQW section of our portfolio, again seen through the attributes of quality work. To highlight just a couple of these attributes:

The study of arsenic in 11th grade Chemistry has led to an on-going collaboration with a laboratory at U-Mass/Amherst, and our students are contributing authentic research to a growing body of information about arsenic in water, its effect on rice production, and the development of ways to test water in the field.
Over time, our students have gotten much better at creating research articles that meet the standards of the professor with whom they are working. This involves craftsmanship; the topics and application of knowledge requires complex thinking, and the reports are contributing to real research.
We want our students to be great communicators, and so we have also been looking for ways to integrate creative expression into our classes; the silhouette project is an example of that.

We’re getting better at including creative thinking and authentic student design and creation in more of our classrooms.

Every year since 2011 we've asked our alumni, in an annual survey, if they feel they learned to communicate well and think creatively. Here are the results:

We learned from trial and error how to shoot for the most authentic work possible, beginning with a focus on having impact in our community through education and advocacy. The Fading Footprints expedition that evolved into The Life of a Vernal Pool is one example of how, over time, we have strived for artistic and authentic student work to serve a greater good and to have more impact in our community.

After a really strong beginning, the on-going story of high quality work at Four Rivers has been about developing new and more challenging ways to push students to create work that is complex, authentic, shows craftsmanship, and serves to educate or advocate for the good of all. We have hoped, as well, to drive our teaching and learning toward mastery of school-wide learning targets, all of which have a place in the ultimate quality of what our students produce. Hopefully, consumers of our portfolio will see this development in the presentations for all the claims we make in this section.

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INTRODUCTION TO HIGH QUALITY WORK AT FOUR RIVERS

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