'Daniel Pink - PopTech 2007 - Camden, ME' photo (c) 2007, kris krüg - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

One of the many great ideas that Daniel Pink has shared is having people come up with one sentence that they hope other people will use to describe them in the future.

He writes about it in his books and in other writings, and I also discuss it in my new book.

Students in two of my classes — one an ESL class and the other a mainstream ninth-grade English class — are doing it now and it’s going well. It’s a short and simple lesson that’s a good reflective exercise for students. I’ll be sharing a video of my ESL students sharing what they came up with and the posters they illustrated. However, even though it’s gotten a mixed response from my double-block ninth-grade class, it’s had a very large impact on a few students who have been experiencing many, many challenges. In fact, after a student collected the posters in that class today, two students stayed after class and insisted that I read theirs right then in front of them. The wanted to explain to me why they wrote what they wrote and how they plan on living up to it in the future. It was very powerful. I’ll share some written examples from that class next week.

Here’s the student hand-out I used: ONE SENTENCE PROJECT (part of it was adapted from the third video in the next part of this post).

Here are the three videos I showed prior to students working on their one-sentence:

Here’s a video a few of my ESL students made:

Mrs. Jee shares this Animoto slideshow.

Video: My English Language Learners Did A “One-Sentence Project”

Beth Sanders’ students created this video:

“One-Sentence Project” Audio Slideshow From My English Language Learner Class

“Your One Word” Seems Like A Pretty Useful Idea For A Lesson

How will you be remembered? Here’s how to adopt a ‘legacy’ mindset. is from The Washington Post.

Let me know if you have resources to share on One-Sentence Project’s you’ve done with your class.

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