Disciplinary Literacies and Inquiry Based Instruction: Community Outreach and Education in the Civically Engaged Classroom
As part of our studies in Equity-Based Disciplinary Literacies at Washtenaw ISD, participating educators are reading and applying learning from The Civically Engaged Classroom: Reading, Writing and Speaking for Change. Ms. Willow Newman, an ELA teacher at the Early College Alliance at Eastern Michigan University, finds that learning, thinking, and planning with students for civic engagement naturally leads to enacting inquiry-based instruction in the classroom. The following summary from Ms. Willow highlights #1 Inquiry-Based Instruction of The Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy in the Secondary Classroom, particularly:
engages students in disciplinary-specific (e.g. historical, political, economic, sociological, or geographic) thinking;
helping students see social science connections to their lives and identities by reading and engaging in discipline-specific, real-world, and/or issue-based investigations with attention to issues of equity, power, and justice;
engages students in developing and asking questions, as well as planning inquiries about history, politics, economics, geography, and the social world;
the role of supporting questions in the inquiry process and supports students in generating new, compelling questions during an inquiry;
helps students make sense of historical, political, economic, and social problems at different scales (e.g. temporal or spatial), and make conjectures about possible solutions.
Ms. Willow’s ELA Recitation Class, Fall 2022, ECA@EMU, in response to the application of learning from the online WISD class: The Civically Engaged Classroom
I am not a History, Government, or Social Studies teacher but the topic of a civically engaged classroom is important to me, even in my little realm at the ECA. I teach a college prep class and a support class for high school students in their first college writing class. Within my Writing 121 support class, each student worked on a semester-long project of their choosing that had something to do with community engagement, education, and/or activism. I worked with them individually and as a group when a lesson was broad enough to cover all of them.
Many struggled to get their projects started; therefore, I sat down and spoke with each of them individually about how it connected to them personally and how they could take that connection and turn it into passion and motivation that could evolve into community outreach and education. All of them truly blossomed within their projects, and it was beautiful to see. At the end of the semester a few weeks ago, each of them presented their project, and we had class discussions that were extremely deep and meaningful. Each student was required to present their projects at the EMU Undergraduate Symposium.
Some examples of projects were:
One student read the book March Book One about the life of John Lewis, the civil rights activist that chronicled his early life during the 1930s to ‘50s and the Civil Rights Movement. She then studied the issue of microaggressions in society today. This student’s project culminated in designing a website:
https://sites.google.com/emich.edu/f22microaggressionsandtheblack/home
One student studied the effects of reduced and inconsistent sleep in teens and how it affected academic performance and mental health. This project culminated in the creation of a board game to teach students in a fun and visual way the importance of a consistent good night’s sleep.
One student chose to research the history of racism in America and compare similarities and differences of racism towards African Americans from the 1960s to the present. She interviewed her grandfather at great length, which showed the importance of family connection and how some things have changed and others have stayed the same but just in more hidden ways.
One student researched the fashion icon Vivienne Westwood who was also an activist who supported the freedom of expression in gender identity and sexuality. She also became an ardent environmental activist later in life. Westwood always used her celebrity platform to push reform agendas through her fashion.
One student studied drug addiction among teenagers, how difficult it is to deal with peer pressure, and how hard it is for parents to figure out how to help them.
One student studied street art as a recent move across the nation being used by activist artists to express their feelings about different issues such as cultural disenfranchisement, oppression, mental health issues, as well as the beauty of different cultural heritages.
One student studied the issues of immigration in America, the fear and trauma that is being caused by ICE raids on families, and how the constant roller coaster of changing government policies affects immigrant populations.
One student studied how high schools limit student voice which can make them feel oppressed and how it may be contributing to increasing mental health issues and why high schools should allow more student input in the decisions that their schools make.
One student studied how the fashion choices of teenagers are a form of unspoken expression, the power within those unspoken words, and why students should be allowed to express themselves freely through their clothing.
On the last day of class, I presented my research for my Political Science Masters in Public Administration that covered: emotional labor, gender, and racial inequality, and the importance of being able to talk about race issues in today's world after a discussion on the Hurricane Katrina disaster response mismanagement and what factor race played within that. We then discussed different musicians who have used their celebratory platforms in activist ways. I shared the music of U2, Bob Dylan, and Jimmy Hendrix, and then we watched the story of Rubin Carter's 'Hurricane' on youtube, who spent 20 years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Each student ended up sharing a song from an artist they follow that used their music to increase attention on a social justice issue.
If you’d like to read more about civic engagement in the classroom, check out The Coalition of Civically Engaged Educators.
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