This semester, our ninth graders have been considering the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Students have explored multiple perspectives on what it means to be human in our modern world. From examining how humans and technology interact, to considering how decisions we make come with consequences, and how our reactions to those consequences are part of the human experience. Students have read poems, stories, articles, and a novel with this consistent question in mind: what does this text reveal about what it means to be human?

After all these experiences, students wrote an essay in which they stated a claim about what they think is the most important aspect of our humanity, and then they supported this claim with evidence from their lives and the texts they had read. Now they are working together in groups to create interactive exhibits that show what it means to be human.