Falling+Down+the+Alice+Project+Rabbit+Hole+Inverting+Traditional+HS+English+Research+&+Writing

Part 1: “Alice Project” Case Study (Website [] ) For 6+ weeks this academic year, 3 sections of 10th grade English students (at a college prep, independent school in Texas) publicly analyzed //Alice's Adventures in Wonderland// (via // [|The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition] //). Instead of the traditional approach to analyzing a text (with a teacher-lead conversations around pre-determined themes), students were challenged to "fall down the rabbit hole" (like Alice) throughout the duration of the project, therefore trusting their own instincts as they made their way through Wonderland's themes.

The teacher shifted from running the class (and a single class blog) to being an as-needed literary resource and blog entry editor before posts/comments went public. Teams of 4-5 students maintained & developed 13 project blogs of on-going (and carefully edited / maintained) digital portfolio of discoveries and analysis. Over time, individual students were responsible for a minimum of 12+ carefully developed entries and 15+ comments (published on the other 12 team blogs) to guarantee a "gentleman's C", as well as to spend a single week as the team's "editor" with additional responsibility for maintaining the team's blog and reviewing posts/comments before publishing. In addition, teams were asked to demonstrate a successful use of various web 2.0 collaborative tools as story-telling / presentation catalysts (beyond the blog itself and Google Docs).

Each student received 3 grades: 1) individual submissions/participation, 2) team development and collective submissions, and 3) assessment of each team's final 'product'/blog in terms of Google/public 'search' credibility. Finally, educators around the US/world were invited to comment throughout the project, as well as to participate as jury members evaluating the 13 team blogs and individual contributions at the project's completion. Part 2: The goal is to provide pedagogical vision and technological how-to’s (based on pro’s/con’s with the “Alice Project”). Ultimately, the goal is to help teachers craft their own collaborative/2-way projects using similar strategies (as opposed to replicating the literal project).  Then I'll create workshop session(s) that helps guides teachers to project-plan something similar on their own terms, starting out with "vision" and "lesson goals", followed by trying to employ 21C/emerging tools to help position the kids/teacher's work in front a larger audience, as well as engaging that audience as potential mentors/colleagues/judges.

Presenter Bio: Christian Long, Arlington, TX
Christian is an educator, school planner, and passionate advocate for innovative learning communities.

He holds a master’s degree in education, with a concentration in school design, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as a bachelor’s degree in English and a certificate of secondary education from Indiana University (Bloomington). Additionally, he was a Klingenstein Summer Fellow for emerging school leaders at Teachers College, Columbia University and participated in the summer-long Career Discovery Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Prior to joining the school design industry, he spent more than a decade as an educator, coach, program director, and experiential education leader in the US, as well as an educator in Japan and on the Navajo Reservation. Most recently, he authored and directed an innovative architecture, design, and planning program for urban high school students in Washington D.C. and was a volunteer educator at the National Building Museum.

Christian speaks nationally and internationally on topics ranging from emerging trends in education to innovative school planning practices.