CONVERSATION-BASED ADVOCACY
One day in the middle of a discussion about dress code, the subject of global warming came up. A student raised his hand and earnestly pondered aloud "Why is it such a bad thing? I mean, we live at the beach, isn't it supposed to be hot?" to which fellow students chimed in with their take on the topic: some in agreement with the speaker and some vehemently against his statement. Although a few students did bring up fact-based points, the vast majority of the resulting discussion was not grounded in anything but hearsay and opinion, which in and of itself seemed to be a jigsaw puzzle comprised of pieces of what they heard their parents say and tidbits of information integrated from memes they'd discovered online. Our children are getting their news from memes; this is the world in which we live.
​
It was at that moment that I realized that my students are not capable of speaking about real world issues in an educated way. My immediate thought after that was that if they could not speak about real life issues, they definitely wouldn't be able to write about them. From then on, it was my goal as their ELA teacher to plan lessons that facilitated student practice of navigating real world issues, and using reliable sources to support claims about ideas being discussed. Due to the fact that the topic of global warming was the one that gave rise to this whole idea, it was one of the first concepts that I wanted to facilitate student discussion of within my classroom.
The PDFs below are three completed group presentations from the above activity in which students collaboratively analyzed and cited multiple texts that I provided in an effort to think, speak, and write about a real-world problem.
Facilitating this advocacy unit was incredibly rewarding, not only in regards to my goals as a professional, but also in the academic and personal growth of my students. By utilizing collaborative discussions after providing foundational understandings of the issue of climate change, I facilitated student practice of academic discourse on a smaller scale than that of a whole group discussion. In doing this first, I allowed students to test out theories and have meaningful conversations on the evidence provided by the texts I chose and then identified by my students. When students were able to integrate their understandings from their own texts, as well as ideas born from discussions with their peers, they felt much more successful and confident in their ability to write an informed piece that focuses on a real-world problem.
In facilitating these practices within my classroom, I provided my students with the imperative practice of seeking out, analyzing, and utilizing informational texts in order to make informed decisions and speak academically on a real-world topic. In providing these activities, I am ensuring that my students are much more prepared to continue utilizing these strategies in the future, which will lead to their becoming more critically-thinking, better informed, and more confident members of society.