Guest Article by Dr. Rose Reissman:
Like other citizens, I often find myself appalled by
things I bear witness to in the media. Most
recently, in addition to the proposed policies of our nation’s most prominent business
heavyweight turned political star to keep immigrants and foreigners out of our
country, a former child star has announced her intention to seek the
Presidency. Doesn’t Mr. Trump know that singling out members of specific ethnic
groups this way directly violates our country’s Bill of Rights, and is Ms.
Lohan so ignorant of our Constitution that she doesn’t know that because she
isn’t 30 years old yet she cannot run? Is it a comfort to know that Kanye West is of
age to run and may well get substantial voter interest in polls and
primaries? What does this say about
American citizens’ knowledge of the constitution and their engagement in social
issues? Let’s not even go there.
In ascribing responsibility for this situation,
among the guilty, our educational system certainly has to share in the blame.
When you add common sentiment about things like gun control, freedom of speech
issues, freedom of religion news, government seizure of phone records, and so
much more that continually dominates the flow of content in our media, one
understands that our schools really need to do more to give students actual
training, background, and citizenship experiences on which they can formulate
quality opinions about the issues that shape their lives.
While we teachers may not be able to educate
the uninformed, misinformed, and apathetic public that has already graduated about
these issues, we can prepare the current generation of students we are now working
with to handle them. We are mandated to teach them literacy, and
college prep and career skills and over the years, as a literacy specialist and
Law Related Education teacher/curriculum writer associated with a great many
k-12 schools, I’ve successfully managed to
tap instruction directed at teaching these skills and expand its purpose and
reach to include Law and Social Issues effectively. My approach is to employ something
I’ve come to call Project Based Literacy, in which students grapple with
important current issues as they create exciting exit products.
In developing, producing, and presenting these
products, students do literacy tasks that require research, reflective reading,
deep discussion, writing, integration of graphics, and use of digital resources. All of these are key elements of contemporary
literacy instruction and combined with deep focus on social issues that affect
students, make literacy come alive as they activate students as citizens now.
Interestingly, while I find that many literacy
educators are still unsure what significant advantages the integration of
technology might bring, in all of these projects it is technology that enables
the students to produce professional looking products, to publish them in the true
sense of having a real presence in the world, and to truly reach an actual audience,
one that often includes adults and professionals who are not directly part of
the school community. Such contact with, and impact on, non-school stakeholder
audiences assures that my students feel that their projects are important and
relevant, so much so that while working on them they are highly motivated,
thoroughly engaged, and often walk away from the experience capable of
discussing important social issues in a way that we all would love to see the
adults they share their world with demonstrate, as well.
Here are a few examples of projects that accomplish this:
1) ‘Kids in the News’
involves students in going online to do short research on and track (as part of
a portfolio), news items in which students are the focus. These items often include: students arrested
for a crime, students whose rights in the United States or internationally are
challenged, and students who lead as young citizens. For each item students create a short summary
and take a position on the social/legal issue and perhaps create a graphic or
interview an adult with expertise (i.e. School Dean, local police, local
official). Literacy tasks include:
reading a range of texts, research into a social issue or connected legal
issue, discussion, short informational writing, interviewing, and perhaps
argument writing. The materials that
students produce are often shared with adults through a web site or blog that
provides opportunities for readers (peers, adults, and experts, both members of
and outsiders to the school community) to comment.
2) ‘Hot Topic
- Citizens Now’ guides students in creating their own podcasts that convene a
panel of students, stakeholders in local issues (e.g. police, safety officers,
deans, community leaders, and local business people) with a student moderator that
detail an issue that affects their community or the country as a whole. Such issues might include: alleged police
excessive use of force in arresting young minority offenders, gun control laws
and background checks, school suspensions and their actual impact on school
violence, use of specialized high school admissions tests which seem to lead to
a small percentage of minority admits, and mandatory public school vaccination
requirements. The podcasts require student research, development of interview
questions, ability to converse and to respond/react appropriately to panel
comments, and ability to argue/advocate a position with reference to 1-3
details that support the position. The
podcast, which of course hones speaking and listening skills and word use, is posted
on the school web site or shared otherwise as a link or an audio file for
listener feedback.
3) ‘Functional Documents - Student Oversight’: Many adults cannot or
do not read small (or even large) print on coupons, ads, nutrition labels, over
the counter prescription drugs, merchandise receipts, and instruction manuals
for equipment they acquire. Students collect from their own kitchen shelves and
bathroom cabinets, as well as school cafeteria discards, packaging as well as labels
and advertising circulars which offer opportunities to focus on word use
details such as danger warnings, (deceptive or verifiable) claims for efficacy,
side effects notices, dosage limits, etc.
Students create a print guide for citizens that alternatively clarifies and
provides improved factual healthy use requirements, limits for over counter
drugs, and details the false, misleading, or commonly misunderstood advertising
and (questionable) claims on labels, coupons and circulars on which they choose
to focus. This print guide can be posted
on line and expanded throughout the year by a team of student oversight
observers. This fosters authentic research,
text engagement, reading for real use of functional documents, and analysis of
purpose, topic, and actual use of products.
Developing a guide to post online is an immediate citizen-consumer
proactive action that contextualizes students as community resources and
contributing citizens.
If today’s students in our K-12 literacy classrooms were
to begin to actually apply their literacy skills to important issues and needs
in the world in which they live as described in the Project Based Literacy
examples given above, we’d likely have fewer tabloid candidates running for high
offices with the support of masses of uniformed and apathetic citizens and more
American teens following in the digital footsteps of Malala, the Pakistani girl who
stood up for her right to be educated and who has become a global symbol of the
importance and impact of youth activism .
That would certainly be a literacy-driven, Common
Sense approach for teaching citizenship now, one that Thomas Paine would
recognize and applaud. Through Project
Based Literacy we literacy educators can make it so.
Dr. Rose Reissman is the co-author
o
f Project Based
Literacy:
Fun Literacy Projects for Powerful Common Core Learning (Information Age Publishers, 2015). She is the founder
of the Writing Institute, which has served 134 schools. Dr. Reissman developed the
projects cited in this article in collaboration with Ditmas Middle School
teachers Angelo Carideo, Michael Downes, David Liotta, and Amanda Xavier.