Schenectady High School
Teacher/Librarian Team
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Kristen Majkut: former teacher-librarian in
Schenectady City Schools for the past three
years, new librarian at Guilderland High School
Susie Walsh: English Teacher @ Schenectady High
for the past 7 years, 10th Grade Team Leader for
the MST House
Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year Award in May, 2008
Currently serving as the Director of the
Schenectady Teacher Center
It all started with a friendly
disagreement over the Kite Runner’s
main character, Amir…
And this difference of opinion led
to a collaborative inquiry-based research project
incorporating Susie’s year long class theme:
what does it mean to have power over another?
Some of Susie’s titles
used in 10th grade
Susie’s Kite Runner
Activities & Field Trips
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Kite Runner Theme: Privilege of Education
Susie invited Kristen to attend all of the Kite Runner
events prior to the start of the project; we were
actively planning and bonding as a group
Guest Speaker – presentation by Connie Reynolds,
who went on a mission trip to the Dominican
Republic
Hot Seat Q & A in the Black Box Theatre
Proctor’s Kite Runner play
Lunch @ the Afghan Grill restaurant in Latham
Three Cups of Tea
After Susie wrapped up the Kite Runner, she
began the non-fiction profile of Greg Mortenson,
in the amazing book Three Cups of Tea
 Mortenson was a mountain-climber turned
humanitarian. He founded the Central Asia
Institute, a charity that has built over 78
schools for girls in the most remote areas of
Pakistan and Afghanistan
 This was a great jumping off point – as soon as
they finished 3 Cups – we dove into the project
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Schenectady High School
Research Program
Librarians and English teachers regularly
collaborate on research projects that are
required by joint departmental policy
 Schenectady HS has approximately 3,000
students, 3 librarians and about 25 English
teachers in 5 different houses of the HS
 We schedule our research classes on a fixed
schedule for our research program: each English
teacher in the building is assigned a two-week
block of time in the library for their projects
(this is not negotiable)
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Collaboration
The English teacher and the librarian ideally
spend a significant amount of time pre-planning
and mapping out our objectives
 Some of the tangible and required end products
that would demonstrate evidence of learning
included: thesis statements, outlines, information
literacy skills, note-taking, rough drafts,
revisions, works cited page, etc.
 Susie & I spent a lot of time planning together
in advance of the project start date; much more
than average.
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Project Inspiration
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Inspiration to focus on charities came from several sources
Susie has modeled service to the local community as an
advisor to the Gospel Choir for 4 years
Susie went with the Schenectady HS Gospel Choir annually
to the Schenectady City Mission to serve and to sing
Daughtry music video – What About Now?
Obama’s call for national service
CNN Heroes program - profiles these amazing people
around the world who are involved in non-profit
organizations that provide desperately needed
services to communities in need.
Project Launch – April 2009
We kicked off the project with this essential inquiry question:
 How do charities positively support and impact the communities
that they serve? (Locally, nationally, globally)
 We used backward design (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998) by
identifying the desired results, determining the acceptable
evidence of learning and then planning the instruction around
those objectives
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Daughtry Video - What About Now?
 CNN Heroes Website & Yohannes Gebregeoris
 Mrs. Walsh’s Library Research Wiki
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Essential Inquiry Questions
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This laser-focused inquiry question evolved because
traditional approaches to generating research topics
yielded massive subjects like ‘AIDS in Africa’ or
‘Genocide in Rwanda’.
We wanted students to shrink their research focus to a
more manageable and more meaningful local level and
then extrapolate their findings outward.
Students using massive research topics were not able to
sift through the sheer amount of information. They were
relegated to the regurgitation of basic facts.
With broad research topics, students were not doing any
kind of analysis or higher order thinking skills that asked
students to evaluate, synthesize, or generate meaningful
conclusions.
Who are the ‘boots on the ground’?
We wanted students to investigate these kinds
of individuals and charities that were the ‘boots
on the ground’
 We asked students to investigate what services
an agency provides and what needs are being
fulfilled and why/how this service evolved
 Students self-selected charities from a range
of charitable programs; medical/health,
educational, civic participation, environmental,
peacekeeping and humanitarian agencies.
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High Level Student Engagement
Collaboration and pre-planning with Susie and
connecting with the students before they arrived
in the library provided a major advantage!
 Students who were not typically motivated were
highly engaged in this process and completed
exceptional projects when this was not the norm
for them.
 Susie also took a chance on the amount of class
time she was willing to commit to this project.
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Post Project Assessment
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By Susie’s final calculations: she had a
staggering 100% completion rate.
90% of projects were turned in on time
The remaining 10% turned in their projects late.
These new statistics were in stark contrast to
completion rates of previous years
We came to the conclusion that the amount
of our prep time, our new project concepts and
ideas (inquiry-based design), and the real-world
connections directly impacted the success of the
project and the increased level of student
engagement.
Vision for 2009-10
Susie revamped her annual curriculum plans for
the coming year over the summer to incorporate
and profile charities throughout the year, not
just as the research project topic
 Susie’s focus for this year comes from Obama's
message to "do good." Susie’s class actively
uses www.serve.gov for new service ideas
 Kristen hopes to actively recruit and collaborate
with Guilderland HS teachers to participate in
the research process using inquiry-based project
design.
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