Cole Ross completed a senior project where he taught a 7th grade Advanced Language Arts class for two weeks. He created lesson plans, assignments, a grade book, and a participation point system to track student behavior. His project facilitator, Mr. Chad Lanier, was always present to help since Cole was not a certified teacher. Cole researched "No Child Left Behind" for his paper, and the legislation influenced how he designed his lesson plans. The project confirmed Cole's passion for teaching and he plans to study education after high school.

1. Cole Ross
March 2011
2nd Period
Ms. Tillery
Senior Project Speech- Education
Wow! Education is something that will totally amaze you once you see the “background”
of it and see how it works. Hello, my name is Cole Ross and I have wanted to be a teacher since
the second grade. For my senior project, I decided that education would be my topic. I chose to
teach a language arts class because of my love for English and the concepts within. In my senior
project, I was able to teach a seventh grade Advanced Language Arts Class with my seventh
grade teacher, Chad Lanier.
For my product, I chose to create three weeks worth of lesson plans and assignments for
the students. I did this, with approval, because I felt it would give me the full affect of being a
classroom teacher. Also, I created a grade book where I graded the assignments that I gave the
students. Lastly, I created a participation point chart; it was a discipline agreement between the
students and me. Every time a student had an issue, they received five points off of; they started
off with twenty points each day. At the end of the week, I would total the points and put them in
the grade book. If a student got a seventy or below on their participation grade, they were
required to write a two paragraph paper to receive their points back.
There were very little problems with my senior project. The ones that I did experience
altered my project greatly. One main problem that I encountered was time. In the midst of my
senior project, my schedule changed for a few weeks, this caused me not to be able to go to the
classroom. Since this happened, I had to alter my project to be just two weeks worth of lesson

2. plans instead of three. Another problem, I was limited on what I could do because I was not a
certified teacher. To fix this problem, we ran the classroom like a team-taught class; my project
facilitator and I were always in the room when I was teaching.
My project facilitator was Chad Lanier. He is a seventh grade social studies and language
arts teacher at Creekland Middle School. He has taught for multiple years in both middle school
and high school. I chose him not only because he was my seventh grade teacher but I knew that
he would be more than willing to communicate and collaborate and let me work with his class.
My research paper and product are similar. My research paper was about “No Child Left
Behind,” curriculum legislation for schools. “No Child Left Behind,” is used in Cherokee County
Schools, therefore, I had to make my lesson plans fit the standards that the government has set in
place for schools. Also, my research was on issues within school districts. Even though I did not
see all the issues, I did notice a few. Since there are standards set in place, teachers are limited on
what they do and how they do it. Standardized testing limited actual learning time that the
students need. All in all, my research paper helped me with y product.
This experience confirmed my love to work with children and teaching. After high
school, I will be moving on to Kennesaw State University to study secondary education.
Personally, I have gained so much respect for educators and I only got a glimpse of what they do
on a daily basis. Judges, thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to my presentation, at
this time, are there any questions?