Challenging Enrichment Activities, Including Type III Studies

A case of a really outstanding Type III enrichment product completed by a fifth grade student can be accessed by clicking here. You should understand that Type III products take many forms and that the initial efforts of underachieving students may be much more modest. In the study described earlier, however, in which the majority of underachievers reversed their underachievement after doing a Type III study with a teacher or counselor, many students completed high quality, independent work. The example of Type III describes a book written by a fifth grade student named Gretchen who had two major interests: the literature of Louisa May Alcott and cooking. Gretchen read all of Louisa May Alcott’s books and identified each time a specific food was mentioned. She researched the recipes of the time that would have been used to make the food (such as buckwheat cakes), field-tested each recipe (including making substitutions for ingredients no longer available), and created an original cookbook entitled The Louisa May Alcott Cookbook, published by Little Brown. In this Type III, both the process and the final product involve high levels of creative engagement and clear evidence of creative work.

Next Section: Assessing Students’ Interests
Previous Section: Alternatives Based on Enrichment