“Genius Hour” Project

You are a youth advocate concerned with issues dealing with the rights of individuals around the world. You have decided to educate your peers at school regarding issues of human rights violations.

After reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and conducting background research, you will focus on one to three (1-3) of the “articles” and demonstrate your understanding of that particular topic by creating a KidTalk video, speech, skit, song, play, artwork, film, photo, story, etc.

You may complete your project individually or in groups of no more than four students. The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” was created long ago (1948) but the content of the declaration still applies to present day events.

Along with the research information, you will be required to document in a “process journal”. You must document thesources that you used, the “thinking process” that was involved and a reflection. All students must submit a process journal and this will be graded along with the presentation.

This “Genius Hour” project is a collaboration between Language and Literature – Writing (Vasquez), Individuals and Societies (Fields), and Reading (Johansen). If you are cross-teamed and do not have all 7-1 teachers, you are still required to complete the project in some form in one of the 7-1 classrooms (details will be provided). For example, each teacher will have a final summative task that you will use your human rights research information. For Language and Literature – Writing, you will complete an argument writing essay (details will be provided).

All students will present their “Genius Hour” projects in the theater at a date to be determined before the end of the 3rd nine week period. Projects will be graded by all three teachers but the project grade will go into Synergy for Language and Literature – Writing.