The Pyre

I'm not gonna lie to you: the day Jessica Skoglund came up to me and said, "Let's have our students make collaborative documentaries," I was more than skeptical. But if you know Jessica Skoglund, you know that she makes amazing things happen by sheer force of will. And so, I began my first deep dive into  PBL  in the summer of 2017. Throughout the summer months, members of my PLC and I collaborated to bring together students' summer reading , current events in the state, and even a documentary from our own professional development. Most importantly, we wanted to provide students an opportunity to sharpen their skills and share their thoughts on education to an authentic audience. Thus, A Whole New School was born! Ready . . . Our first challenge was making sure students had the opportunity to build their background knowledge and skill sets required to pull off mini-documentaries. Our team felt well-equipped to do this in many areas--but we lacked th