This unit ran July 6 – August 6, 2026 at Collins Middle School, Salem MA. Archived as taught. Not maintained. All 20 days
Day 17 · Week 5 · Synthesis and Showcase

Synthesis Studio

One last voyage through the whole story. This time you sail it as your person.
0

Rig your sheet. Open your archive.

3 minutes · solo · paper + pencil + your folder

One sheet, folded like a book. Cover: your name, "Day 17," the date. Then:

Page 1: THE FOUR four picks that matter to your person, one why each
Page 2: THE QUESTION your paragraph after the circle. Save the bottom for THE LAST LOG.
Back cover: MY COURSE today this becomes your build plan for tomorrow

And get your folder out. Every sheet you filed since July 6 is in it. Today that folder gets a new name: your archive. Historians would call it that. Treat it like one.

1

Walk In as Your Person

10 minutes · solo · no Chromebook yet

Thursday you stood up and claimed a person. Today they walk in with you.

Ten seconds, eyes closed. Open them as your person. It is 2026. You are in a classroom in Salem. These kids have spent five weeks on your story.

  1. What would your person notice first about this room?
  2. What would they think of us, telling their story 309 years later?
  3. What would they beg us to get right?
LOG IT: Top of THE FOUR page. Two or three sentences in their voice. First person. "I notice" beats "they would notice."
2

The Hunt: Four That Matter

~40 minutes · your own picks, shared Chromebook · folder open on your desk

Five weeks of story. Your person lived one corner of it. Walk the whole deck one last time and see it with their eyes.

Four places. You know them all.

Artifacts tab → Timeline → People →
ARTIFACTS what the sea kept: gold, pipes, plates, a bell, a boy's shoe
TIMELINE what happened, in order: votes, storms, trials, a map that found a wreck
PEOPLE who it happened to: captains, pilots, a silversmith, a boy, six hanged men
YOUR FOLDER what you made of it: your triangle, your silent write, your articles, your pitch

Choose 4 artifacts or moments that matter most to your person. Not to you. To them. For each pick, one sentence on why, in their voice, on THE FOUR page.

  1. Visit all four places. Your picks can come from anywhere.
  2. Not all four picks from one place.
  3. At least one pick from your own folder. Your work is part of the record now.

A why that works: "The bell. It rang every watch I ever stood." A why that does not: "The bell is cool."

DEEP CUT: when your four are done, walk up and write your number one on the board, with your person's name under it. Every number one that nobody else picked earns 3 league points. Obvious picks are safe. Deep ones pay.

Finished early? Add a fifth pick. Or borrow another set of eyes entirely: play Whydah’s Voyage and make one choice the way Bellamy would.

3

The Circle: Whose Stories?

~20 minutes · whole crew · Chromebooks closed, lids down

Week 4 asked the hardest question of this unit. Whose stories get mapped? Whose get buried? Today we answer it about our own five weeks. Out loud. Together.

Whose stories did we hear? Whose stayed buried?

One voice at a time only the holder of the talking piece speaks
Pass is allowed say "pass" and the piece moves on. Pass is a full answer.
Teacher speaks last your teacher holds their answer until everyone has had a turn

No points for this one. No race. This is a Day 5 kind of moment. Think back to it: 367 people on our ship's 1716 voyage, and the ledger kept a number, not one name. Some people in our story never got a turn to speak. The least we can do is take turns.

AFTER THE CIRCLE, WRITE: THE QUESTION page. Four sentences.
1. We heard a lot from ___ because ___.
2. We almost never heard from ___ because ___.
3. My person is one of the heard, or one of the buried, because ___.
4. One buried story my project can dig back up is ___.
✦
○

Their Voice Circle

5 minutes · talking piece · quiet

You walked all day as your person. Now the talking piece goes around: one line, first person, in their voice. "I saw..." "I chose..." "I want you to know..." Two days from now, strangers hear this. The ring hears it first.

Pass counts. Silence counts.

✦

One More Look

2 minutes · solo · one honest line

Looking back as your person: what did you notice this time that you missed the first time?

One sentence, bottom of THE FOUR page. That sentence is synthesis. It is the whole point of today.

★

The Last Captain's Log

~7 minutes · solo · one last look at the live map

Your adopted ship has carried your log since July 13. Tonight the log closes.

On Day 4 a cipher told you: every ship on every sea is on your map. Prove it one last time.

Open the live harbor view → Or the whole Atlantic →
  1. Find your ship. Where is she tonight? Nearest port or sea. Heading, if the map shows it.
  2. Gone dark? It happens. Ships go quiet in port. Write her last known position and say so, like an honest keeper of a log.
  3. Write the farewell. Two or three sentences in the captain's voice. Final position. One word of thanks to the sailor who kept this log. A goodbye.
LOG IT: Bottom of THE QUESTION page. Date it like a sailor: "3 August 2026." Sign it with your captain's name. Every log ends. Good captains end them on purpose.
★

Chart Your Course: The Build Plan

3 minutes · solo · back cover, MY COURSE

The lists are done narrowing. You chose your person. You chose your format. Now the course becomes a build plan. Three lines:

  1. My first 20 minutes tomorrow: what do I make first?
  2. Materials I need on my table: say it today. We can print tonight.
  3. The 3 or 4 journal pages my project will cite: you named them at your pitch. Today's hunt may have changed the list. Update it.
Your Project HQ →

Showcase is Thursday, August 6. Three days out. The plan is the treasure now.

synthesisperspectivearchiveburied story

synthesis = pulling many pieces into one new whole · perspective = the place a story is seen from · archive = the records that survive · buried story = a story the records left out