The Eleventh Hour: When Persistence Pays Off!

Since I began working with gifted students many years ago--first as a classroom cluster teacher and now as a GT Facilitator--I have been very aware of a particular character trait which is under-developed in our brightest students: PERSISTENCE! Since so many things come easy for them, they aren't accustomed to that threshold of discomfort when some "blood, sweat and tears" might be required in order to succeed.

So when our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders began our unit on The Eleventh Hour, a very elaborate but also laborious and detail-oriented problem-solving mystery, I have to confess I was a bit skeptical about how reliable their attention spans would be in sticking it out to the end. Would interest quickly peter out when they realized it was going to take some patience, guts, ingenuity and plain-old hard work to get through it and find a solution?

I am pleased to say the students proved my skepticism completely wrong! The Eleventh Hour turned out to be one of the most engaging and successful inter-disciplinary units I've ever facilitated. Kids were revved up until the very end, always eager from the moment I got them to the "closing bell" of our sessions. And this was hard stuff, folks! Here is just a sampling of the higher-level thinking skills the students were practicing as they engaged with the story and the mystery:

• deductive reasoning
• inductive reasoning
• logic
• analytical thinking
• visualization
• vocabulary-building (context clues)
• inference
• reading comprehension
• oral fluency

Students use a cipher wheel to crack the final code
in The Eleventh Hour

The list could really go on. I just wanted to make this unusually wordy post to congratulate the students on a beautiful and inspiring job. They followed it through all the way to the end, and the few weeks we've invested in it were more than worth it.

I know some of you have already gone out and purchased the book for home. I think it is money well spent. Students have been asking if there are other similar books. The author, Graeme Base, has also published Animalia, which is said to have a very similar feel. Worth checking out! Might help turn some of those long, video game-heavy days of holiday break into some productive brain and character building! : )