Kimberly Hammaker

Hammaker’s innovative teaching idea, “A Magazine by Kids, for Kids,” focuses on creating a writing community within the Conservatory School through the creation of a school magazine. Blending a vast variety of skills into one process and final product, this project is an example of project-based learning, a teaching approach that is increasing across the country due to its real world applications. The creation of the school magazine will provide students with a platform to use their voice in an educational manner. Students involved in the program will draft, revise, edit, publish, share, curate and critique content as they work on the magazine. This project will primarily seek to strengthen informative, argumentative and narrative writing skills. In addition, the class magazine will lead to independent research on a variety of topics such as science, history, literature, current events, technology and social issues.