During the first weeks of school, when the students schedules are set, I assign this project.

I print two fulls sets of the words. I staple one set and cut the other set up into a bowl. On the day I am assigning the project, while the students are working on their warm up, I walk around and put a piece of tape on the edge of each student's desk. The tape is about an inch long.

Then, I hand out the rubric (which I copied two on a page and cut apart) and a piece of blank white copy paper. I explain that each student should reach their hand into the bowl and pull a word or phrase. The student tapes the strip with the word on it to the rubric, once pulled. Once all students have a word or phrase, I start the stapled pages going around the room. The student finds their word or phrase that they just pulled and prints their name next to it. This helps me keep up with who has what word. Each student has a different word. If you don't need as many words as are on the list, then remove the ones you don't need.

I explain the rubric and tell them a due date. We have one-to-one technology, so I give them about twenty minutes to research their word and get a good start on the assignment.

If the student hands the assignment in early, then I use a clear ruler to measure the letters and picture with the student next to me. If the assignment meets the criteria, I accept it early. If the assignment needs improvement, then I hand it back to them and ask the student to refine the work.

Once all of the assignments are turned in and graded, then I organize them before I staple them up on the wall. All of the life science words are arranged together with all of the words about cells together and so on. Each time we discuss the word during the year, I use a laser pointer to show where it is on the wall. This lets the ELL students have a picture to link the learning to as well as anyone who needs this support.

You can sort the words when cutting them up for level science and pre-ap science to help with differentiation.