The goal of this lesson is to give students ownership over classroom policies by asking them to research and support a cell phone policy that they believe should be used in our classroom. Students will discuss and debate the policy after researching and then they will create the policy that we will follow for the first quarter. After the first quarter, we will reevaluate the policy for effectiveness. Students will use research and speaking and listening standards to complete this PBL for an authentic purpose. It is important to actually implement the policy for that particular class, or students will not feel the 

This PBL lesson will set writing expectations for the class at the beginning of the year. By creating a rubric for writing, students will examine the language of the standards, identify nunanced differences in criteria for different scores on writing assessments, establish expectations for writing during the school year, and collaborate with peers to engage in creating an authentic product.