ETA:
9. Scaffold lengthy or complex projects into smaller benchmarks, with well-defined criteria.
Oddly 4th-8th grade there were TONS of lengthy projects but in H.S. there are very few. Last year and this year I believe there will be only one long project, a second semester social studies/history project. Math is just homework/tests. History is reading the book, quizzes & tests, a few in class debates and the one required spring project. Chemistry will be mostly labs, tests, quizzes and problem sets. English is reading books, taking tests and then writing mostly in-class essays, and some grammar/vocab. Spanish is weekly vocab, homework, participation, speaking, tests. There is a lot of writing in both English & Social Studies but most of it is short answer, or quick 75 minute essays.
Seems odd that the younger grades spent so much time focusing on this. My kids were always doing long complex projects one after another. I noticed this with my daughter as well. This may be partly honors/AP vs. non-honors classes in the H.S. though. I believe many of the AP classes assign big projects after the AP test is taken since we usually have 5-6 more weeks of school.
