Cakes in Class

So much of what we do in middle school language arts involves writing – sentences, paragraphs, essays, reports, stories, answers to questions, etc. I have no regrets about working my students until their writing hands fall apart, mind you. But I do recognize that it can cause occasional academic weariness in adolescents. As a teacher, I believe in giving students a variety of learning opportunities that allow them to understand and to demonstrate their understanding through different strengths – multiple intelligences or modalities or whatever you want to call it. But as an English teacher, especially in the middle grades, I don’t often have the flexibility to work in the "fun" stuff. What amazes and confuses me is the unbelievably random nature of the creative projects my students produce when I manage to give them the chance.

I like to assign them an unidentified “Creative Project” to go along with an essay, a speech or a presentation of some sort. I require them to represent whatever we’ve been studying in whatever way they choose. Over the last two years, this particular group of students has surprised me over and over again with their project choices. I have one boy who likes to make up songs or the occasional interpretive dance. (And let me tell you, if you’ve never seen a “too cool for school” 13-year-old boy flail erratically in front of the class while rapping about a book we read in class, you haven’t lived.) There is a group of about 5 students who routinely choose to record themselves acting out parts of books or historical events in their backyards, and then edit and polish a DVD to show the class. (This has become such a popular option that they now create blooper reels to add on to the ends of their movies.) I have several gifted artists in my group, and their abilities, as well as their posters, pictures, illustrations, etc., have frequently impressed the entire class, and I have other kinesthetically oriented students who create models, sculptures, dioramas, or other 3-D creations. Some of the students, who don’t necessarily have access to the same technology as others might, take immense delight in performing surprisingly well-organized dramatic skits in front of the class. (Admittedly, allowing 8th graders to create their own skits is occasionally a risk. For the last round of creative projects, there was a quartet of boys who decided to present a skit involving a disturbing and unfortunate portrayal of "The Birth of America" that I'm still trying to wipe from my memory... I'll let you think about that one on your own time.) At any rate, by far the most incredible projects are the cakes.

I’m not sure where it started, although I do have two students who are die-hard fans of both Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss. (In one of my unguarded moments, I must have agreed to this, but for the life of me, I can’t fathom why. Feed teenagers sugar during class? Seriously?) Anyway, in using cakes as the medium for their creative projects, the students decorate the cakes in a way that represents something from the unit we’ve been studying. There are all kinds of complications, of course, especially since we’re not allowed to serve homemade food to students at school. So the kids must decide whether they want to buy a plain cake and decorate it (expensive, but allowed to be shared) or make the entire thing themselves (far more impressive, but with less popularity with peers attached to it due to the non-sharing regulations on homemade food). For our most recent project, I had a grand total of 6 cakes, including one 3-layer spectacle with little plastic army men marching across a sugary meadow. We had so many cakes that I had to store them in the school’s walk-in cooler. Every morning, we’d get one of the cakes and take it back to class with us. (When did I agree to host a week-long cake party?!) I made them wait to eat cake until the end of class so that their sugar rush would be inflicted on me for as little time as possible, and then I sent them off to some other teacher who had to deal with the hyper darlings. Please don’t blame me… They’re just being creative.