ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCES

FOUNDATION FOR YOUTH ENTREPRENEURS UNIT

Description

In this interdisciplinary unit, students use their knowledge of the characters they have studied in English I and the information they've learned in the economic portion of ELP to create a business. Based on a character, students start a small corporation. Every decision, such as selecting the Board of Directors, where to locate the company, and how to market a product, reflects their insight into that character. The teachers of English and ELP act as a Foundation that will decide whether to fund the business. Before students can truly begin the project, their business and product must be approved by the Foundation who, in turn, agrees to help fund them although supplemental funds must be raised through stockholders and loans.

Since students need a wide variety of characters to choose from, we complete this unit during 4th quarter. By this time students are used to working in groups and, unlike previous projects, we let them choose their group members. I always limit the number of people in a group to 6 or 7 to ensure enough tasks for each person and encourage ownership in the project.

The entrepreneurial project lasts approximately 4 to 6 weeks-shorter or longer depending on how many requirements you want to have. My ELP teaching partner and I did not devote each day during the 4 to 6 weeks to the project. We gave the students a master calendar with benchmark dates. Sometimes I would give a class day to the project and sometimes he would, depending on our schedules. Most of the work, however, was completed out of class. Class time at the beginning and at the end of the project is most important as the students have to make initial decisions, such as selecting the character, picking Board Members, and researching stock values that affect the project as a whole. Near the end of the project, one person should be in charge of putting the business notebook together (this holds all activities listed below), and some group decisions should be made about their booth at the Entrepreneurial fair, the final product of the project. It is this final product, the fair itself, that is the culminating activity of the project. Students try to sell their product to their peers, handing out business cards and other propaganda. Ultimately, the students vote on which booth they think is best.

This project can easily be modified to fit the ability level of your students and the amount of time you can give to the project. For example, you may choose to only complete a few of the requirements listed in the activity chart below. Particularly an English teacher, without the aid of a social studies partner, might need to focus on the more English-related tasks rather than those that require specific knowledge in economics or other areas. The loan chart, for instance, requires advanced math. However, some of the items are accessible to any student, such as creating the company's logo, writing a character profile and mission statement, as well as surveying the public to determine a product's audience and probable success rate.

One of the project's strengths is the range of talent that it pulls out of students. There is a task or activity for different student strengths: the logo requires artistry, the survey demands logic and planning, the company's stock value requires research, most likely on the computer. The character profile, Mission Statement, and business letter require correct grammar and persuasive wording. It takes creativity to design a group's booth for the entrepreneurial fair and interpersonal skills to sell the product. All of the multiple intelligences are needed, and the project is an effective way to review what texts and characters the class has studied during the year.

For the items marked with an * below, I have included several forms to help you manage the details of this project.

Vickie Smith, Wake County Public School System

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