- Rogers Park Elementary
- 6th Grade ROPES
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HG Sixth Grade Rite of Passage Experiences
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The Sixth Grade Rite of Passage Experience (ROPES) is a required opportunity for HG students to apply the skills, knowledge and Habits of Mind they have developed during their time in the Highly Gifted Program. The focus of ROPES is on independent learning and connecting academics to real life experiences. The program goal is for students to demonstrate they are ready for middle school by applying Growth Mindset thinking and the Habits of Mind as independent and self-directed learners.
ROPES requires students to individually design and complete an in-depth project that involves a responsible risk and a personal challenge. This might be an investigation into an academic area, a potential career path, a form of art or craft, or a skill to be developed. The project is then narrowed to a specific topic that can be completed in one school year. After it has been discussed and approved by sixth grade teachers and parents, a display of posters gives the students the opportunity to celebrate and publicly announce their commitment to each project. Students receive assistance in the selection of their coach or guide with whom they meet throughout the year, generally outside the school day.
In the spring, upon completion of their ROPES, students write reflective essays about themselves. In addition, they design a presentation of their learning. The presentation shares the journey of their project including successes, difficulties and problem-solving strategies. Sixth graders then practice their presentation with a fifth grade audience who will provide feedback about each presentation. Additionally, ROPEs coaches provide written evaluation of students.
During an individual appointment in May, each ROPES candidate presents the results of his/her project to a panel of three trained community members. Panelists first read a studentʼs essay and coach evaluation and then listen to the studentʼs presentation. The panelists work to foster a “grand conversation” with the students and provide them with detailed feedback.
Essential elements for success for a ROPEs project include:
- The school staff, parents and community members serve as coaches for the students as they develop and complete projects.
- ROPES, Growth Mindset, and Habits of Mind are an integral part of the HG instructional program.
- There is a high degree of parent, community, and business support.
- Scaffolding and safety nets assure student success.
“The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us;
the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. The hero's journey is a symbol that binds, in the original sense of the word, two distant ideas, the spiritual quest of the ancients with the modern search for identity, always the one, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story that we find.”― Phil Cousineau