Let’s go back to last year for a moment. It was the moment when I decided to give a research alternate assignment aimed at students who were stalling on the whole-class assignment I already gave them. And the results led to one of those rare moments when everything just clicked – students were engaged, critical thinking was happening, and the energy in the room was palpable. The source of all this academic excitement? A research project on the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake rap battle.

Now as I’m planning for next year’s 10th grade English curriculum, I find myself constantly referring back to that research project. It’s fascinating to me how an assignment about hip-hop is shaping my approach to a unit on progress and innovation. Let me lay it out for you.

The Hip-Hop Project That Started It All

When I first proposed a research project centered on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake rap battle, I had some doubts. Would students take it seriously? Would it meet our academic standards? But as soon as I introduced the assignment, I knew we were onto something special.

Students who usually groaned at the mention of research were suddenly volunteering to stay after class to discuss their findings. They were analyzing lyrics with the same intensity they’d apply to a Shakespeare sonnet. 

They were exploring cultural contexts, debating artistic choices, and yes, learning a lot about ethos, pathos, and logos along the way.

What made this project so successful? A few key elements stood out:

1. Relevance: Students were investigating a topic that mattered to them, something from their world.
2. Complexity: The rap battle wasn’t just about music – it touched on issues of culture, identity, artistry, and more.
3. Multiple Perspectives: Students had to consider various viewpoints to fully understand the battle’s significance.
4. Creative Expression: Some of the most insightful analyses came in unexpected formats, from mock podcasts to visual timelines.

As the essays rolled in, I was impressed by the depth of analysis and the genuine enthusiasm students brought to their work. But I also noticed areas for improvement. Some students struggled with source evaluation (turns out, not all hip-hop blogs are created equal). And others needed more guidance on how to structure their arguments. 

From Hip-Hop to Innovation: The Unexpected Connection

Fast forward to now. I’m moving to 10th grade English next year, and our team has a required “Progress and Innovation” research project. At first, I was disappointed that I couldn’t bring my hip-hop project with me. But as I started planning, I realized something – the lessons from that project are incredibly relevant to this new unit.

The core skills – critical analysis, evaluating multiple perspectives, connecting cultural contexts – are just as crucial when examining technological innovations as they are when dissecting rap lyrics. The engagement factor of studying something current and relevant? That’s universal.

The New Project: Progress and Innovation: Navigating Ethical Dilemmas

So, I set out to create a new project that captures the magic of the hip-hop assignment while focusing on innovations and their ethical implications. Here’s how I’m applying the lessons from the hip-hop project to this new assignment:

1. Student Choice and Relevance: Just as students connected with the hip-hop battle, they’ll now choose a specific case study of progress or innovation that interests them. This could be anything from the development of social media platforms to breakthroughs in genetic engineering.
2. Complexity and Multiple Perspectives: Students will analyze their chosen innovation from various angles, considering beneficiaries, those who bore costs, power imbalances, and unintended consequences. This mirrors the way they examined the cultural and artistic implications of the rap battle.
3. Ethical Reasoning: While the hip-hop project implicitly touched on ethical issues (cultural appropriation, artistic integrity), this new project makes ethics explicit. Students will apply ethical frameworks to their case studies, much like they applied literary and rhetorical analysis to lyrics.
4. Creative Presentation: Keeping the energy of the hip-hop research project alive, students can choose to present their findings in various formats – oral presentations, essays, or multimedia projects. A natural adaptation from my assignment last year is that in 10th grade students do not have to write a research essay and can create a research product, opening up the opportunities for creative expression.
5. Interdisciplinary Connections: Just as the hip-hop project connected to cultural studies and media literacy, this new research project links to history, science, technology, and philosophy.

A Hypothetical Example: Lululemon’s Fabric Innovation

To illustrate how this might play out, let’s consider a student who chooses Lululemon’s fabric innovations for their research project. 

Here’s how they might approach it:

1. Topic Selection: The student really likes Lululemon and chooses this as their initial topic. They find as a topic of innovation Lululemon’s development of high-tech fabrics like Luon.

2. Research: They’d investigate the company’s history, the science behind the fabrics, and the impact on the athletic wear industry.

3. Ethical Dilemmas: They might explore issues like:

• Environmental concerns about synthetic materials
• Questions about the ethicality of their pricing strategy
• Debates over body inclusivity in their marketing and sizing
• Controversies surrounding past comments from company leadership
• Truth in advertising controversies

4. Multiple Perspectives: They’d consider viewpoints from Lululemon executives, consumers, environmental activists, and fashion industry experts.

5. Ethical Frameworks: They could apply utilitarianism to weigh the benefits of comfortable, high-performance clothing against environmental costs, or use virtue ethics to examine the company’s marketing practices.

6. Presentation: They might create a podcast episode discussing the “Fabric Revolution in Athletic Wear,” or design an infographic about the pros and cons of synthetic fabrics.

The Lululemon example illustrates how a student might approach this research project, but it also got me thinking about the broader implications of this assignment. As I considered more potential topics, I realized that this project could open doors to exploring innovation in ways I hadn’t initially imagined.

Broadening Horizons: Rethinking “Innovation”

As I’ve been developing this new project, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany about the nature of innovation itself. This isn’t actually the first time I’ve tackled an innovation research assignment. In the past, I’ve used it as a companion piece to our study of Frankenstein. 

Back then, I steered students pretty firmly towards scientific innovations. After all, Frankenstein’s monster was a product of scientific experimentation gone awry.

As I reflected on the success of the hip-hop project and its wide-ranging discussions, I realized I had been thinking about innovation far too narrowly. 

Innovation isn’t just about lab coats and test tubes. It’s everywhere, in every field imaginable.

Consider the world of fashion. The development of new fabrics or sustainable manufacturing processes are ripe for ethical discussion. 

Or take game design – the ethics of microtransactions or the impact of virtual reality on social interaction are fascinating topics. 

In sports, new training techniques and advanced equipment raise questions about fairness and human enhancement.

The more I thought about it, the more examples came to mind. 

Art, music, agriculture, urban planning – innovation and ethical considerations exist in every domain. This realization has been liberating. 

By broadening the scope of what we consider “innovation,” we’re opening up the project to a much wider range of student interests and experiences. 

A student passionate about fashion is just as capable of deep, nuanced ethical analysis as one interested in genetic engineering. 

Different fields might bring different ethical considerations to the forefront, but the core skills of research, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning remain the same.

It’s a reminder that sometimes, as teachers, our own preconceptions can limit our students’ learning opportunities. By stepping back and allowing for a broader interpretation of the assignment, we’re inviting students to bring their diverse interests and perspectives to the table. And that diversity of thought is exactly what we’re aiming for in these discussions of ethics and progress.

Making It AI-Resistant (Because That’s a Thing We Have to Do Now)

One challenge I didn’t face with the hip-hop research project but had to consider for this new unit is the prevalence of AI writing tools. As much as I love innovation, I’m not quite ready to have ChatGPT do my students’ homework. So, I’ve built in some features to make this assignment more AI-resistant:

1. Specific Case Study Selection: Students choose a specific historical example of progress or innovation. The uniqueness of each student’s choice, combined with the requirement to analyze its historical context, makes it harder for AI to generate a one-size-fits-all response.
2. Diverse Source Requirements: Students must gather information from a variety of sources, including primary documents, scholarly analyses, and critical perspectives. This emphasis on diverse sources and the need to synthesize information from them makes it more challenging for AI to replicate the research process.
3. Ethical Dilemma Identification: The requirement to surface key ethical issues and tensions specific to their chosen case study requires original critical thinking. Questions like “Who benefited from this progress, and who bore the costs?” or “Were there power imbalances or injustices involved?” necessitate nuanced analysis that’s difficult for AI to fake convincingly.
4. Application of Ethical Frameworks: Students need to apply ethical theories and concepts discussed in class to their specific case study. This application of abstract concepts to a concrete example requires a level of understanding and synthesis that’s challenging for AI to replicate, especially if the ethical frameworks are specific to our class discussions.
5. Personal Reflection and Argumentation: Developing a reasoned perspective on how the ethical tensions should have been navigated, while considering counterarguments and limitations, requires personal judgment and critical thinking. This combination of analysis and personal reflection is particularly difficult for AI to generate authentically.
6. Multi-format Presentation Options: By allowing students to present their findings in various formats (oral presentation, written essay, multimedia project), we’re encouraging creativity and personalization that goes beyond what most AI tools can currently produce.
7. In-Class Components: Portions of the project, such as preliminary topic selection and research, will be conducted in class. This allows me to observe the students’ thought processes and provide guidance, ensuring the work is their own.
8. Ongoing Class Dialogue: The project is designed to contribute to our class’s collective exploration of the theme. Regular check-ins and class discussions about the projects as they develop make it difficult for students to rely solely on AI-generated content. We’ll take this into our discussion of Frankenstein in the next unit.
9. Evolving Prompts: I’ve designed the project guidelines to be easily updatable, focusing on recent developments and current ethical debates in various fields. This recency makes it harder for students to find pre-existing AI-generated content that fully addresses the prompt.

And as I look at those updates…I’m not just making the assignment AI-resistant — this is leading to a deeper learning experience. These features encourage students to engage more fully with their chosen topics, think critically about ethical implications, and develop their own voices as researchers and thinkers. 

(On a different note, if you’re interested in how you can bring Lululemon’s successful building strategies to your classroom, check out this podcast episode)

Reflections on the Process

As I’ve worked on adapting the successes of the hip-hop research project to this new context, I’ve been struck by a few realizations:

1. The Power of Unexpected Connections: If you had told me a year ago that a rap battle analysis would inform how I teach about technological innovation, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s a reminder to stay open to inspiration from unexpected sources.
2. The Universality of Good Pedagogy: The elements that made the hip-hop research project successful – relevance, complexity, multiple perspectives – are not genre-specific. They’re hallmarks of engaging education across subjects.
3. The Importance of Iteration: Reflecting on the hip-hop project allowed me to identify areas for improvement. Each research project design is a stepping stone to better teaching, if the time to reflect and refine is taken.
4. The Need for Flexibility: As much as I loved the hip-hop project, I had to be willing to let it go and adapt its principles to a new context. Flexibility is key in responding to both student needs and curriculum requirements.
5. The Value of Student Engagement: Both research projects, at their core, are about connecting academic skills to topics students care about. When students are invested in the subject matter, the depth of learning can be incredible.

Looking Ahead

As I finalize the plans for this new unit, I’m genuinely excited to see how students will engage with it. 

Will analyzing ethical dilemmas in innovation prompt the same level of enthusiasm as dissecting rap lyrics? Only time will tell. 

But I’m optimistic that by applying the lessons learned from the hip-hop project, we’re setting the stage for some deep, critical thinking about progress and ethics.

I’m curious to hear from other teachers: Have you ever had a successful research project in one unit inspire your approach to something completely different? How do you carry forward the lessons from your teaching “greatest hits”? How are you adapting your assignments to be more AI-resistant? Drop your thoughts in the comments – I’d love to hear your experiences!

P.S. For those interested in the original hip-hop research project, I’ve actually revised it based on what I learned from that first run. The updated version, with clearer source evaluation guidelines and more structured peer feedback sessions, is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. If you use it, let me know how it goes!