You've finally narrowed down your question and your teacher gives yout time to gather the information that you need to address it. You regularly write in your Inquiry Journal and find yourself writing all sorts of notes about your topic and about the process. One of these entries comments on how you've never done research quite like this before. Normally, a teacher tells you what the essay needs to be about, and you research. This time, you researched both before and after you figure out what the question is. You note that this feels odd, but it is also incredibly helpful. You research in this phase is much more effective!
You then gather your notes, write an outline. You find that the divisions in the outline would work really well in an essay, but your not allowed to do that. You think that it might also work as a PowerPoint slide presentation or a website. The advantage of a website is that it is easier to get away with something that is text heavy and, unlike the PowerPoint, you may not have to actually present it live! You don't like talking in front of the class, so that would be just fine if you could get away with that.
You build the website. It's text heavy but you've been able to add some links and images, so it's not too much like an essay. Each page is a section of your outline and you think that it ends up looking pretty good! You present it to your class and realize that the presentation is a little more awkward because the website doesn't flow quite the same as other presentation styles. You notice that when ever you change the page on the website, everyones eyes start reading the page and you wonder how many of your classmates are listening to you. The question and answer session surprises you. While you thought that you put everything that you know onto the website, you get asked some great questions and find yourself able to answer them confidently. You like talking about your topic and seem to know more about it than you thought. Your enthusiasm is contageous and you find that others in your class also enjoy talking about your topic. Your teacher cuts the discussion short and you leave the class feeling like you've done a great job!
At the end of the day, the best way to tell a story is the best way to tell a story and that might just be an essay. This student opted for the website for primarily the wrong reasons. He chose the website/essay because writing was the skill set that he had and he made the topic fit the medium. He may have discovered along the way that he was able to design the website such that the images, links and potentially other media could deepen the communication of the message and he may have learned something about web design along the way. But ultimately, he chose this option because he could think of nothing else.
We can support students like this by spending more time working through creation options with the students and when students do choose an option almost as a cop out, but still in a medium that has potential, we can support them through the create phase. We might bring in a web designer to talk about how they convey a message through layout, graphics, colour and fonts. We might regularly check in with the student and ask questions about the work that they are doing. Questions like, "How do you think someone coming to your site for the first time might interpret that?" or, "What questions might a visitor to your site have after they've read a particular page?" or even, "Might there be a better way of conveying this pages message? Could you reword or could you add media to enhance the page's message?"