Planning & Prep

#1 ideation

What are the important topics your community wrestles with? What are the "nondiscussables" the community is reluctant to engage?
What larger, global issues are at play that might be impacting your students, their families, and the community?
Ask your students. What justice issues perplex, agitate, and engage them? When do they feel they are getting screwed over?
Keep your eyes and ears open as you move through your day. What social justice topics might point toward a rich learning experience?
Look for connections to your standards ALL THE TIME, which requires an intimate familiarity with your content. And you don't have to choose between justice topics and your content - this is about choosing both!
Resource: Check out Teaching Tolerance for classroom resources and project ideas, and take your standards to the next level by integrating their Social Justice Standards.

After you pick a topic, where do you stand on that issue? Do some learning and research to broaden your understanding, including getting familiar with all sides of the issue. Don't go into the project blind.
There's some identity work inherent to good preparation for tackling these topics. Know your triggers on the issue. Have a plan for how you will keep your opinions from influencing student thinking.
If you are team teaching, do some learning together!
Go visit with members of the community. Go to possible field trip locations.

Bounce your ideas around with peers, students, friends, significant other, and possible community partners.
Run it by your director/principal to make him/her aware of the path you are going down.

Develop a Driving Question that can remain at the forefront of student thinking. Don't bury a meaningful topic/issue inside some professional problem to solve. Students grappling with authentic justice issues should be the priority.
Imagine your students, at multiple phases of a project, wrestling with this Driving Question. Will it challenge them? Will they, over time, be capable of thinking with more depth and nuance in response to the question?
Resources: Sample Driving Questions for justice projects; and check out essential element #2 in this article.

Lean on your project planning tools to get the key project elements in place. (NTNers - bust out your Project Planning Toolkit!)
Use the 6 A's of Quality Project Design as a good reality check to see if you are headed in the right direction.
Pay close attention to the performance assessments you create along the project path - these will help ensure you keep the learning targets in focus.

Communicate with internal and external stakeholders (including parents) about the upcoming project experience.
Make it clear what you are learning about, why, and how will you approach it. Discuss what will and will NOT be in the learning experience.

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