Designing a Pay It Forward Project

Note: As a book, Pay It Forward was intended as adult fiction. While it may be appropriate for some senior literature classes, we advise you to use the book with discretion.  As with any quality teaching, educators need to know their community and their students before assigning any literature. In order to do so with proper awareness, it can only be assumed that the teacher has read the book, as well.

Designing a Pay It Forward Project is as Simple as 1, 2, 3 . . .

#1.  Challenge and encourage your students to design their own projects, just as Rueben St.Clair, the teacher in Pay It Forward, did with his students.  Click here for examples of real projects completed by other students.

#2.  Make sure that your project is using a Pay It Forward principle  . . .to do something for three people, who do for three others . . . See Trevor’s explanation excerpted below:

Reuben St. Clair, the teacher and protagonist in the book “Pay It Forward,” starts a movement with this voluntary, extra-credit assignment: THINK OF AN IDEA FOR WORLD CHANGE, AND PUT IT INTO ACTION. Trevor, the 12-year-old hero of “Pay It Forward,” thinks of quite an idea. He describes it to his mother and teacher this way: "You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to Pay It Forward. To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven." He turned on the calculator, punched in a few numbers. "Then it sort of spreads out, see. To eighty-one. Then two hundred forty-three. Then seven hundred twenty-nine. Then two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven. See how big it gets?"

#3.  If needed, apply for a Pay It Forward  mini-grant.  Click here for application criteria, forms, and deadlines.