7th and 8th Grade Capstone Projects

7th Grade Humanities, 8th Grade English Language Arts, and 8th Grade Social Studies students at Cathedral typically grapple with major ideas. This year has been particularly rich and challenging as the COVID-19 pandemic has cast its own pallor on issues of injustice, inequality, and racial disparity.

An excellent opportunity to showcase what they have learned and discussed throughout the year came in the form of Capstone projects over the last few weeks. Students worked in pairs in 7th Grade and individually in 8th Grade to undergo a deep dive into the connections between what they have studied and how that intersects current concerns and events. They combined research, analysis of their readings, and writing for oration to produce a final project for screening at viewing parties.

The students were asked to mix and match from the literary works covered in their classes, a compendium of relevant news articles, and a list of the courses “Big Ideas”–and in the case of Social Studies, the historical roots of these big ideas in colonial times–in order to complete a thesis statement and flesh out a defense.

View a few samples of these scholarly deep dives here: