Architects of Empathy

Middle Project Idea · Grades 6–8
A snapshot of the 5-Phase Prompt Sequence for Project Framing — in action.

Teachers don’t need another 40-page packet. They need to see the process move. Here is one middle-level project framed with the same five-phase sequence I use when AI is a thought partner — and I refuse to let it finish the work.

The rule under every phase: the teacher keeps creative direction and veto power.

The project at a glance

Driving question. How can we redesign a shared space in our school or neighborhood so every young adolescent feels they belong?

Enduring understanding. Places send messages about who is welcome. Design is never neutral — and young people can author more empathetic spaces.

Why middle-level. Belonging is the work of young adolescence, not a soft add-on. Three to four weeks, housed in ELA + social studies. The space has to be walkable, and a living adult has to receive the work.

Three products. One rubric.

• Town hall proposal (4–6 minute address + one-page brief)

• Three-episode podcast with peers, staff, and a community partner

• Physical or digital prototype + five-minute blueprint defense

Never take the first output. If the idea could live in any zip code, it isn’t framed yet.

The five phases, in action

Phase 1 · Foundations (Standards & Skills)

Do this before you open a chat. I named argument writing with evidence, public speaking, and civic inquiry. Durable skills I would actually score: empathy and perspective-taking, complex collaboration, agency and iteration, ethical AI use.

If you can’t fit the standards and skills on one sticky note, you are not ready for ideation.

Phase 2 · Thought Partner (Ideation & Refinement)

Ask for options, not a unit.

I am framing a 3–4 week interdisciplinary PBL project for grades 7–8. Priority standards: argument writing with evidence, civic inquiry, and public speaking. Durable skills: empathy, collaboration, iteration, and ethical AI use. Generate 5 authentic project ideas about belonging in shared public spaces. For each, include a driving question, a public audience, and one reason a young adolescent would care. Do not write lessons or a calendar.

AI offered a citywide playground, a kindness mural, and a courtyard turned into a student third space. I vetoed the mural (pretty product, thin thinking) and the playground (too big for three weeks). I kept the third space and narrowed it to one walkable site — cafeteria corner, courtyard, parklet — then rewrote the driving question. AI is good at volume. It is average at the question kids will still care about in week three.

Phase 3 · Scaffolding (Differentiation Bottlenecks)

Same intellectual demand. Different on-ramps.

Core task: investigate one shared space, gather perspectives from at least three stakeholder groups, and propose a redesign that increases belonging. Create differentiated versions for struggling readers, advanced students, and multilingual learners. Keep the same content and durable skills. Do not water down the public product.

Readers got a “what the space says / who it leaves out” organizer and audio interviews first. Advanced students got the ethics extension: Who pays? Who is displaced if the space changes? Multilingual learners got a bilingual interview protocol and permission to draft in the language of thinking before publishing in English.

Phase 4 · Assessment (Rubrics & Process)

I don’t want “creativity: 4 — very creative.” I want language I can teach from on Tuesday.

Create a 3-column rubric (Developing / Proficient / Exemplary) for Critical Thinking, Complex Collaboration, Agency & Iteration, Ethical AI Use, and Empathy & Perspective-Taking. Criteria must be observable and teachable mid-project. Avoid vague words. Ground descriptors in interviews, design criteria, public proposals, and revision evidence.

What I kept: Proficient empathy names two stakeholder groups whose needs conflict and holds both in a design choice. Exemplary iteration points to a failed prototype that changed the work. Proficient ethical AI use shows one claim the tool got wrong and the human source that replaced it.

Students use the rubric to revise. Final grading of the public product is human, and done without the tool.

Phase 5 · Student Use (Verification Protocols)

Students don’t submit the chat. They submit the thinking they did to the chat.

• The exact prompt I used

• A short summary of the output

• What I verified, cross-checked, or changed

• Why this improved my final work

A 7th grader used AI to draft interview questions for the cafeteria manager. Her log: “Output gave me generic questions about inclusion. I dropped four. I added two I heard in advisory: Who gets asked to move? Who never sits here?” That log is evidence. The transcript is not.

Three weeks of PBL, compressed

Week 1: Need-to-Know, site walk, first interviews, product pathway.
Week 2: Conflicting perspectives on the wall, low-res prototypes, mid-project critique.
Week 3: Revise, complete verification logs, present to a real audience.

Steal this, not the topic

The sequence travels. Your spark might be a bus loop, a creek, or a mascot debate. Four moves cannot be automated: name the standards, localize the idea, decide what quality looks like, and grade the thinking yourself. Voice and choice only work if all three products hit the same rubric. If a student can’t say what they changed, they aren’t ready to submit.

Do Phase 1 on a sticky note tonight. Run the Phase 2 prompt with your standards. Cross out three ideas. Rewrite the surviving question so it could only happen in your community. That is framing. Finishing belongs to you and your students.

This middle school project idea was developed in collaboration with AI as a thought partner. All ideas, framing, and insights are my own, grounded in classroom experience and the CraftED project-planning methodology.