Portfolios are projects ILS students complete to showcase their learning. Students in the 7th and 8th grades complete one portfolio project each year. Beginning in the fall and extending through the academic year, students work through a nine-step process to reach their final result. Working individually with a single faculty member, students first must have their proposals approved, then develop a thesis statement and source list. Students spend much of the year in reading, studying, experimenting, and taking robust notes on their given topic. Faculty review and approve initial outlines, then students begin writing the first of three drafts. Their final products are diverse reflections of student personalities, interests, family backgrounds, and aptitudes.
Immanuel's faculty note that not all learning is best represented or imagined via written papers. However, the rigorous and creative process of working on a major project to completion guides students to value excellence and produce their best academic work. This honors the intellect and abilities of the individual student, pushing all to learn and grow, believing all are capable of such in depth work. While no student projects are ever perfect in the end, we celebrate each student's sense of wonder and delight, demonstrated through their dedicated efforts throughout the course of the year.
Literature Portfolio Project: Seneca Falls Furthers Women’s Suffrage Movement (Ellie, 7th grade)
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment which granted women’s right to vote. The advocacy for women rights started long before that. One of the first conventions for women’s rights was held in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19 and 20 , 1848. The convention produced a Declaration of Sentiments and a list of grievances loosely based on the Declaration of Independence. Many public figures came to the convention including Fredrick Douglass, E. C. Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. The signers of the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls made a religious argument on the basis of their beliefs about natural law for the equality of men and women and for women’s rights.