Help high school students focus on their dreams for their future by doing a project where they will create an “image book” about their dreams and goals for the future. Students enjoy this project as it lets them think about what they want to achieve upon completing their education. Also, high school students enjoy projects where they use their visual senses in addition to their writing skills.
Start by describing to the class that they will make an image book of at least ten pages using words and also images including photos, pictures from magazines, maps, postcards, or other images. Of course all chosen images must be appropriate for use in school.
Give examples of pages of the book; either describe the pages verbally or use the overhead to show images of sample pages. Use samples that show images and writing about dreams such as pursuing a career as a doctor or writer, traveling to Italy, having a pet, and other dreams for life.
In this project, students will combine images and writing to complete ten pages of ideas about their future life. The image book will contain information about future career, geographic locations for a future life, information about hobbies and travel ideas for the future, and also information about any other important dreams in the life of the student.
Bring in magazines and maps for students to find images to use in their book project. They may also do research on the Internet to find helpful images. Also supply poster board to use as the pages and cover of the book. A hole punch device will be used to make holes to bind the book together with pipe cleaners. Other needed supplies include scissors, glue, magic markers, colored pencils, crayons, and graphics to use on the pages such as stickers, stars, and other decorative stick on items.
Tell students to spend time brainstorming ideas. Then they will write a list of ten to 15 dreams they have for their future life. The dreams may be about career, travel, family issues, pets, achievements, activities, or other ideas they have about events in their future.
As students are doing research on the Internet and also going through the magazines looking for images circulate the room. This project gives a teacher a chance to talk to the students and learn more about their plans for the future. Ask each student what their book will be about. Their answers are usually very interesting!
Remind students that they must have some writing and some images on each page. The students may hand write neatly on the pages or type their written passages. Each book page will be the size of a piece of Xerox paper, about 8 by 10 inches in size.
Give students at least one class day to work on the image book. They may use the computers for research. They will also be finding images in magazines, cutting them out, and pasting them into the pages of their book. Students will work in groups to make it easier to share supplies for creating the book.
Students will write a description of the dreams they have for their life and also try to find images to accompany their writing on the pages of the image book.
Inform students their grade for the image book project will be based on writing skill and also care taken to put together a book that is neat, well organized, and informative.
Assess student progress on this lesson for giving a participation grade for their work effort while putting their book together. Also give a writing grade for their writing skill in the project. Assess whether the information in the image book is specific and clearly described the student’s dreams for life in words and images.
