Procedures

Teacher Notes

Step 2: Synthesis
Brainstorming-- Whole Group The students will: participate comfortably and confidently in group discussions and experiences listen to the ideas of others recognize current social issues in their own life experiences and their role in influencing decisions (PSVS).	The nature of the collective creation process demands that it be flexible. The process will be modified depending on the needs of the students, the topic they have chosen, and the direction they wish their collective to take. Because the topic of "Work" is fairly broad, Synthesis is undertaken prior to Research in this unit. By generating and grouping ideas into sub-topics, the students will be able to focus their research on specific aspects of "Work".
From the comments in the students' journals, the teacher has discovered that all of the students are willing to explore the topic of "Work" for their collective creation. They say that they like the idea but they are uncertain how to proceed. Through further discussion the students agree to trust the process and commit themselves to the work. The teacher asks the students to brainstorm aspects of "Work" that they might explore in the collective creation process. The students generate the following list: job interviews working conditions getting fired work and school homework family responsibilities time stress money retirement status post-secondary education parents' expectations part-time work full-time work changes in working conditions history of work equal pay affirmative action discrimination harassment stereotyping in jobs career unemployment laws boredom Synthesis -- Small Group The students will: respect the viewpoint of others discover relationships and patterns participate in brainstorming and classification activities to explore the possibilities for categorizing ideas (CCT). The students and teacher discuss various ways of organizing ideas, emphasizing that the web developed for "Healthy Lifestyles" is only one example. The class is divided into random groups of four or five students and each group is asked to develop an organizational framework for the ideas that the class has generated. One student from each group puts that group's framework on the board. The students discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various frameworks and choose, for the organizational structure of their work, the following framework based largely on the model of one group but incorporating ideas from the others. (Please see "Work" web, pg. 57)