Project Based Lesson Plan:

STICK & MOVE

Project Description

Stick and Move is a project about students realizing the ways that everyday people can have effects on the flow of history and on their world. It is about deconstructing the myth that there are a "few great leaders" who created change on their own and instead brings focus to the millions of people who put their bodies, lives, and dreams on the line to create a more just and equitable society.

Stick and Move analyzes the art of persuasion by studying Social Protest Movements, symbols, and writing from the past and present. By looking at the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement, The LGBTQ+ Movement, Black Lives Matter, Protest Dakota Pipeline and more, students are given a chance to find their own voices through acts of protest, persuasive writing, and artistic expression.

Student Work: Protest Stickers

The stickers below were designed by 6th-grade students who studied several Protest Movements, their rhetorical strategies, and their symbols.

Student Work: Zines

Below is a pair of Zines made from selected writings and art produced by 6th-grade students during our "Stick & Move" project. These writings feature students using rhetorical strategies, analyzing the connections between art and the artist, or wrestling with our Essential Questions

class a zine rotated1.pdf

class b zine.pdf

Reflecting on "Stick and Move"

This project was a blast for both me and my students and is very near to my heart. Designing this project with my students has inspired me to teach this unit again in the near future, and to make it bigger in the following ways:

Time:

Stick and Move were originally only 5 weeks long. After seeing the success of the project, as well as the limitations of covering such a broad spectrum of content so quickly, I have decided to expand this project into a full 12-week project.

Content:

The original Stick and Move focused on Symbols, Rhetoric, and Joy. Part of the reason for expanding the project is to make room for an extended period of time to cover Strategies. Students showed intense interest in understanding the difference between demonstrations, boycotts, strikes, occupations, and other protest strategies.

Products:

During this year students created their own stickers advocating for causes that resonated with them. They also collaborated as a class to create a black-and-white zine. In the extended project, students would still create these two products. In addition, students would also create either an op-ed essay or persuasive letter featuring a call to action (which we would spend class time defining and practicing), as well as artistic representations and awareness campaigns for causes that resonate with groups of students.

Page updated

Report abuse