Are Benchmark Projects in Need of Change?

Image From Ava Etemad Rezai, Caption: The benchmark projects are supposed to challenge students, but are they just a burden?

Designed to challenge students and prepare them for future academic and career pursuits, benchmark projects at Washington serve as cumulative assessments that push students to explore a variety of topics. From the sophomore year Resiliency Project, junior year TED Talk, and senior year research paper, these assignments are intended to develop critical thinking, research and presentation skills. 

While these projects are rewarding, many students struggle with time management, especially when balancing multiple classes, extracurricular activities, and personal responsibilities. The research process can be daunting, and the public speaking involved in the presentation can be a source of anxiety for some students. 

Ella Mangonan, a sophomore at WHS, believes “the Resilience Project is important to an extent because it’s good to know about the world around us and how genocide affected it. But I don’t think it’s going to be useful in the long run to us. The research will be useful, definitely, and how to cite is going to be useful. But it was fun to learn about the world around us that we never discovered before.”

Aryac Dube, a junior, states that “the TED Talk is a great project because you’re able to talk about something that you actually want to talk about—something that’s personal to you,” he explained. When discussing the research component, Dube highlighted how the TED Talk allows for a more flexible approach. “For the TED Talk, the research project is more creative because you can basically choose the way you want to do the research,” he said. He compared this to the Resiliency Project, where “you had to open a dataset, read it all, and then do it from there.” He noted that his TED Talk topic—society’s lack of empathy toward special education students—lets him incorporate more first hand personal experiences. “I’m using my meetings with Husky Buddies as a way to gather data and analysis,” he explained. “There’s just a broader way to get your research rather than having to do it one strict way.” 

Chelsea Sandoval, a senior at WHS, is currently working on her senior research paper. The topic she chose is U.S. immigration policy, and she shares her personal connection. “Since I’m Mexican, I believe that what’s happening recently is really important, and I want to research more on the topic so I’m more educated on it,” she says. She emphasized the importance of strong research skills and media literacy, explaining that students must learn to distinguish between credible sources and unreliable information. She notes that the public speaking aspects of the project can be intimidating but, “in this space, because you were given a topic that you want to talk about, I think people are more comfortable.”

Though Sandoval realizes the importance of the benchmark projects she felt that they could be more flexible: “I don’t think a lot of people like writing seven-page papers,” she says. “I think it should be more creative—maybe doing a movie or an interpretive dance would be better,” she suggested. She believes students should have more options for how they present their findings.

Though Dube believes the project builds important skills, similarly to Sandoval, he also believes that the system of implementation is a bit flawed. “Those are important skills, so the projects are good in one way,” he admitted. “But the way they put it on us is horrible.” He suggested that if the school wants students to develop these skills, it should be done in a more structured way. “If they want to do it, it should be just in your history class or just in your English class,” he said. “And it’s way too long.” 

Finally, Mr. Dimitriou, an English teacher involved with the Resilience Project, shared his perspective. “I think the biggest skill is actually just the confidence in your ability to do something that might seem from afar really hard to do,” he says. “Writing a 7 to 10 page paper might seem really hard, but then when you start chipping away at it slowly, that confidence that students can gain is pretty important.” Mr. Dimitriou acknowledged the length of the project, but says,  “Unfortunately, I think if we quicken the project, there’d be fewer people turning things in. Part of the reason why the project is longer is to have these smaller checkpoints, so that students don’t get overwhelmed. But maybe it’s gone too far the other way.” Overall, WHS benchmark projects provide opportunities for students to improve their research, presenting, and critical thinking skills, though many students believe that the rigid framework and workload could be changed to promote creativity and make the learning experience more manageable.