The MYP/IB Personal Project - Part 1
Choosing a Topic and Getting Started
If you had the freedom to do something that you’ve always wanted to do, what would you do? Compose music? Write a book? Invent something? The MYP personal project is an opportunity to explore and become an expert in an area that really interests you.
The personal project is not a class assignment. In your sophomore year, each student is required to complete “a significant piece of work that is the product of the student’s own initiative and creativity.” The project is assessed by teachers against a set of IB assessment criteria. Only those who pass will go on to enroll in the IB program.
The purpose of the personal project is to demonstrate your understanding of the Area’s of Interaction (AOI) and how they affect your understanding of the world. This gives few limitations to the possibilities and directions that your personal project can take.
The Areas of Interaction include:
- Approaches to Learning: Creating individual awareness of how you learn best
- Human Ingenuity: Understanding how the process and products of human creativity impact society and the mind
- Community and Service: Requiring that you take an active part in your community and discover how these experiences effect you
- Environment: Developing an awareness of interdependence with the environment so you can understand and accept responsibilities
This year, my friends projects ranged from film, to character development in novels, to animation, to jewelry, and web design. My project was about the writing process. Specifically, I focused on how an author’s writing process affects the outcome of their novel.This allowed me to grow as a writer because I built an in depth knowledge of writing methods. I learned how a method can impact the novel.
How to choose a topic?
Before you start the project, you are required to complete a Personal Project Questionnaire which includes a set of questions relating to your interests and skills. The questionnaire helps you choose a topic for your project.
How to develop your Essential Question (EQ):
After you choose your topic, the next step is to develop an essential question. Luckily, the EQ is also covered in the questionnaire.
Your project will be based on an EQ - a broad, open ended question. The EQ will help you build your project in a way that demonstrates your understanding of the Area’s of Interaction .
After creating your EQ you will describe why it relates to an AOI and your project. You will then create an outline of preliminary activities to begin your project.
My advice - pick a topic that facinates you. You will be working on this project for months. You wouldn’t want to waste time on a topic that won’t hold your interest.
Can you change topics?
Once you pick a topic, you are pretty much glued to it. Because of the structured steps that each project follows, changing a topic midstream would require a herculean effort .
I can see your web will be really helpful when I do get into the IB Diploma, grade 11 !! :))
Also I am really happy you’ve added me to your blogroll! :))
Aaaah, it’s so great that someone actually knows what the two letters I and B really stand for
May I ask you what are your IB choices?
Get back to me, hehe,
just reply on my blog :)))
Much love,
xxx
10th grade doing the personal project now had to change my EQ 2 times and I still have doubts.
I wanted to be global because IB loves that stuff but specific and that’s quite hard to do. Doing an original piece of art though and I’m really scared.
Chloe, I just wanted to tell you how much your website has helped me doing my personal project.
I just needed a little help. I saw that your personal project was to learn about how your writing process affects your way of writing. It connects the the AOI Human Ingenuity.
My question is, if my personal project is writing a book which teaches others on how to be confident in many areas, does that connect to Human Ingenuity or CAS? or both?
Please reply!!!
Thanks
xx
Naaah,
I’m confused about whether you’re doing an art piece or not. Tell me more about what you’re doing and trying to accomplish and I’ll be happy to help.
Natalie,
For our project we weren’t supposed to connect to areas of CAS. However since you are creating something combining your work with research you’ve pulled together to create this novel, I would personally say that Human Ingenuity is the way to go. Also you can include the Approaches to Learning because all of the approaches to learning are important in the creation of a written piece.
Dear Chloe,
This has been very helpful since I’m in the 9th grade just starting the IB MYP. I wanted to ask if writing a novel really would be a good choice in doing a personal project. And if I do write a novel, what does it have to include or be based on? I love writing novels about plain fiction and romance, and I’ve written a few already, but how could I apply the IB standards to my novel?
Thanks,
Maheen
Maheen,
I ran into the same problem. I wanted to write a novel because I LOVE writing. What I did was I picked a random topic to write about. What my goal was for my PP was to become a better writer. I examined other writer’s writing styles, processes, and methods. From there I created my own writing process that led to a longer and overall, more successful novel than what I’ve written in the past.
The AOI you can connect this to is Human Ingenuity (for sure) and depending on the topics addressed in your novel, you may be able to talk about Health/Social Interaction and other AOI’s.
Hope that’s what you were looking for.
~Chloe~