Taking Action to Make a Change

      Students in Dana Anderson's AP English Class did a service learning project and hosted a lovely dinner, filled with student work, student artists, music, speakers, and delicious, local food.  The proceeds of this event directly benefited Freeport Community Services and Unifcef.  A big thanks to our partners: Azure Cafe, Olivia's Farm, Coffee By Design, When Pigs Fly, Hannaford, Bow Street Market, and Freeport Community Services.

The Assignment

TATMAC is an event based around many Independent Research Projects that were completed by students in the AP Language and Comp class at FHS. Throughout the course of a semester, each student had to research both sides of a controversial issue of his/her choice. The students were to use books, articles, primary sources, books, and images to learn information about their respective topics. The purpose was to write an 8-12 page argument, based off the AP exam synthesis argument. In his or her final writing, each student researcher presented both sides of the controversy, and ultimately chose and supported one side based on the information s/he learned through research. This event is the result of the class connecting each topic to our overall theme: Taking Action to Make A Change.

Reflection on Our Process

After writing our research arguments, we were interested in finding a common theme that encompassed all of our topics. Finding this common theme struck our class as a challenge, as we had very different topics from immigration to Hurricane Sandy from Prostitution to Renewable Energy. We came to the realization that, as a class, all of our topics required some type of change to influence the problems presented. As a result, we decided that the goal of this project was to take some action to make a change (TATMAC). This action to make a change would have to be done by us, both by organizing and hosting a dinner and by getting the word out to the community on how people here can make a change by educating them about our topics and influencing them to engage with our causes. That is when TATMAC began growing its roots. Together, we talked about how each of our research topics would in some way connect and be showcased in an event that would give back to worthy causes. As a way to give back to our local community, we made a unanimous decision to give half the proceeds to Freeport Community Services - a local organization that serves our neighbors in need. We also wanted to benefit the global well-being, even in a small way. So we researched many global charities and decided on UNICEF. UNICEF benefits children worldwide. In various ways, we found that the missions of FCS and UNICEF connect somehow to most, if not all, of our topics and helps us each take action to make a change.

Organizing the Event

Planning the event was both overwhelming, but also very rewarding at the same time. We felt that the topics we researched were very important and wanted to share them with the community. Many of us became very inspired by our topics, and we felt as though we needed to help and make a change. Designing the event during class, although difficult at first, was very engaging. Instead of sitting in class, we were able to become fully invested in something that mattered to the whole class. By planning this dinner event, we were able both to inform our community and to help motivate change for a better world. This event has stirred everyone in our class to take action to make a change! We hope the event itself will be as inspiring as the research we did on our topics, and encourage others to get involved as well.