Advocacy

Conversation Related: Small Group Discussions and Reflections on School-Level Policies

Selecting Topics for Advocacy Project: Bell Ringer and Needs Assessment

Bell Ringer:

As previously mentioned, I selected the topics that students wrote about based on a bell ringer students completed a few weeks prior that asked them what changes they would like to see at school. Student responses to this question have been included below. The two most common answers were that students wanted to have a looser dress code and use their phones during recess and lunch. Additionally, after we completed this bell ringer, the school announced a new rule banning caffeinated beverages on campus, which students were unhappy with. With these answers and changes in mind, the topics I selected for students' advocacy projects were: dress code, phones on campus, and caffeinated beverages on campus.

Needs Assessment:

Additionally, I built upon the Needs Assessment assignment I completed in Teaching for Transformation I. My previous needs assessment was aimed at issues affecting our school community during virtual learning, so I adapted it based upon the issues students had reported to me this year as well as the issues included in their bell ringers. I had students report their needs at school as well as the degree of importance about each issue. I then used these responses to choose the final topics that had the largest number of students report that the issue was very or highly important to them. I conducted this assessment using PearDeck for Google Slides and had students move icons to the box that they felt best represented their feelings. The data from the PearDeck needs assessment is included below.

Conversation-Related Lesson

Do Now:

Students first entered the room and chose to sit at one of three stations, organized by topic. Station 1 was phones at school, station 2 was uniforms or the dress code at school, and station 3 was students drinking caffeinated beverages at school. Student choice was a key aspect of this lesson and of teaching about advocacy in general, as my goal was to be a facilitator as opposed to the driving force behind the activity. I wanted students to choose the topic that was of genuine interest to them and a change they were passionate about seeing within their school. After choosing groups, students completed the second part of the do now which asked them to write about an issue that they feel strongly about outside of school. As students completed the do now, the definition of advocacy was displayed on the board. Students then grounded themselves in the issues they are passionate about during their first exposure to the concept of advocacy, combining the real-world connection to the power of their voices and opinions. Student responses demonstrated students' ability to understand the importance of real-world issues as well as see their own power over exerting change on large, systemic injustices. This provided the backbone of our work on advocacy, as each student came to class with passions and interests, and it was my role to facilitate turning those passions into skills of change. Student responses to the do now are included below.

The Meaning of Advocacy:

After completing the do now, we went over slide #3 as a class, which taught students about advocacy in in each of its grammatical forms: advocacy, advocate (noun) and advocate (verb). We also used this time to explicitly tie back advocacy to our ELA content on grammar and types of nouns, and students provided verbal responses to the questions of if advocacy and advocate (noun) were proper or common nouns. This helped students understand that going beyond just the meaning of advocacy is important, and that students should begin to see themselves as continual advocates for the issues that they care deeply about.

Advocacy in Group Settings & Stop and Jot:

Next, we discussed as a whole class the value of advocacy in group settings as the slide below was displayed on the board. Students worked to understand how working in groups or in larger numbers can increase the strength of the advocacy effort. Students also discussed that a larger number of people in agreement about needing to see change shows those in power that the issue is significant and important to many. The slide displayed on the board during this time is included below.

After students participated in the lesson on the meaning of advocacy and the power of working in groups, they had the opportunity to participate in a collaborative stop and jot exercise on what they had just learned. This gave students the ability to put individual thoughts and responses into a group space where they could see and build upon the thoughts of their peers. Students completed the stop and jot by answering the question "How does working together make our voices stronger or louder?" In their responses, students demonstrated a clear understanding of the power of collaboration and the ways in which strength in numbers contributes to the overall strength of the advocacy effort. Students also tied advocacy in its different grammatical forms and the concept of collaboration back to real-world issues in their responses, with one student reporting "the more people who advocate the more attention the movement gets." From this point on in the lesson, students led each component that followed, beginning with the stop and jot. I initiated the lesson and learning through the slides included above and instructing students to complete the stop and jot. I also initiated learning through providing instructions for reading the articles provided and discussing in groups. However, beyond these instructions, students led each activity on their own in groups. Student responses are included below. Student names have been obscured to protect student privacy.

Group Discussion Component:

After covering the necessary knowledge acquisition about the meaning of advocacy and the importance of working together, students were ready to move on to the group discussion component of the lesson. In this part of the lesson, students worked in their topic groups to read an article that I provided together, discuss the meaning of the article, and complete a group reflection. Students were instructed to discuss the article and the reflection questions as a whole group and then designate one person to write the group's responses. In the conversation-related component, I provided articles from NewsELA that were aimed at giving students further information about their topic in a factual and unbiased manner. I wanted students to formulate their own opinions and goals surrounding the changes they wanted to see, which they would then report in their group reflection, before I provided articles in support of a specific type of change. Links to the articles and evidence of students reading and conversing in groups are included below.

Group Discussions and Reflections:

Students then read their articles together and discussed the content they had just read. Included below is evidence of students interacting with these articles and having group discussions about what they have read. Student faces have been obscured to protect student privacy.

After reading the article together, students then moved on to continue group discussions by reflecting on the information they read in the article and discussing what changes they would like to see at school. Students were instructed to use the reflection worksheet questions as a guide for question starters during these discussions but also discuss any other opinions or thoughts they had surrounding their topic. The template for the discussion worksheet is embedded below. Each group received a physical copy of this paper and designated one student to write responses on behalf of the group, following the culmination of their discussion and agreement on the response.

Finally, students completed the reflection worksheet as a group, using their discussions and thoughts to collectively agree on their response as their designated note-taker wrote and submitted the reflection worksheet. This also taught students the importance of designating roles and maintaining organization and communication throughout advocacy efforts that are conducted in group settings. In their responses, students demonstrated a clear understanding of the importance of collaboration in their advocacy efforts as well as the ways in which outside resources strengthen their argument through providing facts and evidence to support their reasoning. This demonstrates new knowledge acquisition as well as the application of ELA-specific concepts to student advocacy work on real-world issues. Each group demonstrate mastery of the following: the importance of collaboration in advocacy, the ability to brainstorm and request concrete and specific changes as related to real-world issues, and the ability co recognize the value in citing factual evidence to support their position. Student responses and evidence of students working in groups is included below. Student names and faces have been obscured to protect student privacy.

Wrapping Up Conversation-Related Advocacy: Individual Reflections

As the final component of the conversation-related advocacy lesson, students completed individual reflections that acted both as exit tickets and as spaces for students to decompress from the group work and conversations they had just completed. I provided the questions "What did you learn about advocacy in groups?" and "What did you learn about your topic?" This allowed me to gain valuable insight into the success of the activity as well as individual student learning. Students completed these reflections on the same sheet of paper that they completed the do now. These reflections demonstrate a clear understanding of the content I introduced as well as extension opportunities for further learning and engagement in self-directed learning and real-world issues. Students also demonstrated clear feelings of self-efficacy in enacting change and believed in the importance of their own involvement in issues and injustices they see. This is evidence that I initiated learning on advocacy skills, but from there, students meaningfully engaged and led in their efforts to create explicit changes and craft arguments. In sum, the conversation-related component of this lesson provided meaningful data for me to examine as well as helped students learn advocacy skills in group settings and believe in their own power to affect change. These were all crucial predecessors to the action-related advocacy component, which is discussed in further detail in the following section.

Examples of student responses have been included below.

Action-Related Component: Letter Writing

For the action-related component of my advocacy lesson, I led students through a group letter writing project that culminated in students publishing complete letters that would be sent to the principal of our school. This included a lesson on the conventions of professional letter writing and how to include outside evidence in your argument, a template to complete letter writing, sentence starters for argumentative and professional writing, and options for revision based on the feedback that I provided to each group. Advocacy is a crucial part of student learning, and it is of the utmost importance that students not only understand what advocacy is but also feel confident in their skills to enact change. This meant that students had the opportunity to build on the conversation-related component that they completed by continuing to work in their groups to present a convincing argument to a person in power, which in this case was the principal of our school. Students demonstrated their abilities to convey proper conventions of grammar and professionalism as well as use outside sources to strengthen their claim.

Lesson Materials on Letter Writing:

The first part of the action-related component was a lesson that I gave on the conventions of letter writing and the structure of a letter. These were slides 7, 8 and 9 of the lesson slides included at the top of this section, and photos of individual slides have been included below.

This part of the lesson was the learning or activity that I initiated and taught. Following this, students moved into group writing time using a template I provided to each group. It was during this action activity that students had the ability to demonstrate extension of learning and the ways in which they were meaningfully engaging in the content beyond what I provided.

Letter Writing Process

Group Letter Writing:

As students began the group writing process, the slide included below was on the board for students to continually ground themselves in the expectations of the activity and directions for work time.

I then provided each group with a new article, based on the explicit changes that they reported that they wanted to see in their conversation-related reflection. This meant that students now had access to an objective article that provided them with opportunities to increase their understanding of the issue and an argumentative article aimed at strengthening their own position. Students understood the importance of including evidence from this article in their final product.

Adding Evidence to Support Your Position:

After students read and annotated their articles, I paused the class and did a mini-lesson on the importance of citing evidence and provided students with a "toolkit" to do so. I linked this in Google Classroom for students to refer back to during group writing time. We first discussed how and why using outside sources strengthens our position and then moved into concrete examples and sentence starters for citing evidence.

Group Writing Time:

After reading their articles together, using the same format displayed above for group article reading, students then moved on to group writing time. For this time, I provided a letter writing template for each group that was posted in Google Classroom. This gave the group the ability to collaborate on the document at the same time. The letter writing template also provided each group with sentence starters and worked as its own graphic organizer to structure this format of argumentative and professional writing. I was intentional about being slightly vague in instructing students to "work together to write their letter," as I knew that over-scaffolding this exercise could result in stifling students' true ability to lead their own learning processes and demonstrate their independent advocacy skills. The outcomes of this approach, where I took a backseat role as the teacher and instead left space for a great deal of student choice and self-directed learning, were undeniably impressive and detailed below.

Letter Writing: First Drafts and Revisions

The action-related lesson lasted two full lesson cycles. Students finished the first lesson when they completed the first drafts of their letters to the principal in their groups by finishing each sentence starter within the letter writing template. After students were done editing the document and completed their first drafts, I added revision suggestions to strengthen their letter via the Google Docs commenting feature. This provided students with the opportunity to revise their work but still have a high degree of control and direction over the final product that they submitted. My revisions mainly focused on grammatical fixes or increasing the professionalism of each letter. For the most part, each group did not need to add significant revisions to their actual argument or use of outside evidence to support their position. Evidence of these revisions is included below. Student names have been obscured to protect student privacy.

Letter Writing Lesson #2: Implementing Revisions and Individual Reflections

To begin the second lesson of the letter writing project, students started the time by again working in their groups to complete revisions. Once students had completed revisions based on my comments, they were instructed to proof-read as a group and then ask for a final read through from me. After each of these steps was completed, each group was ready to publish their letter and submit it to the principal. The final draft of each letter is included below. Student names have been obscured to protect student privacy.

The final drafts of each of these letters show a marked change from the first draft based on the revision suggestions I gave. Students were instructed to expand their argument or add detail, but not provided with specific aspects of an argument or anything that would cross a line of teacher direction versus teacher initiation. Additionally, each of these final drafts demonstrates a clear ability for students to work in groups and individually on advocacy efforts that asked them to hone their skills writing about real-world problems. Each of these issues has importance beyond our school community, and each group was able to demonstrate this in their writing through the inclusion of the sources I provided. Students also went beyond the sources I provided by crafting their own arguments and nuanced understandings of how to best achieve their desired outcome. For instance, the group that wrote regarding the dress code policy amended their initial argument for students to "wear whatever they want," to providing a more toned-back approach that they believed would lead to a great chance of success by positing that they "understood why crop tops are not allowed." This group also used critical thinking skills and text to world connections to postulate that the argument provided by the source that stated that "dress codes are unevenly applied to girls" meant that dress codes are sexist rules in their practice and implementation, despite the source never explicitly stating this. This is strong and indisputable evidence that students demonstrated the ability to introduce new ideas beyond what I provided and were able to write about real-world issues.

Wrapping Up the Advocacy Lessons: Final Individual Reflections

As the last step of our work on advocacy (for now), I asked students to complete an individual reflection about their learning. I made a template for this document and posted it as an assignment in Google Classroom. I then instructed students to complete this document after their whole group had published their letter.

Students demonstrated a clear understanding of the importance of advocacy, the strength of collaboration, and the ability to make connections to injustices both within and outside of school in their reflections. This demonstrates students students engaging and writing about real world issues and introducing new ideas beyond the ones that I provided. Students were also explicit in their understanding of their own ability to enact change and speak up against injustice. Not only is it clear that students see themselves as capable of instituting successful advocacy efforts ("Even as a 6th grader you can be an advocate"), it is also clear that students now see advocacy as part of their duty as learners and humans ("If I don't take action, it will continue to happen!" and "I think it is morally wrong to let it be and not take any action").

Final Step: Delivering the Letters

Students at my school do not currently have access to at-school printing due to COVID-19 restrictions, so I told my students that I would print out their letters and deliver them to the principal of the school. When doing so, I deleted the table formats of the letters that acted as a graphic organizer, but did not change a single piece of formatting, wording, or any writing otherwise, and printed each letter out so it looked like a normal letter. I then delivered these to my principal and passed along the message that she would look into the rules and give a response to my students. In the following days, the principal came on during morning announcements (which is unusual) to explain the reasons that the school implements the rules that students wrote about. The following justifications were given (though I could not record the announcement due to school rules, my students were intently listening): the dress code is in place because the administration sees the presence of uniforms as an equalizer for students who may not be able to afford many other clothes, phones on campus are not allowed during school hours to mitigate bullying and harassment, and students are not allowed to drink caffeinated drinks on campus because the school wants to limit the incentive for students to sell food and drinks that are not available on campus. My students were both disappointed to not see quick changes in policies following their letters, but were also enthused that it was their own efforts that received a direct response from the principal. I told my students as a final thought that often, advocacy efforts take a long time and lots of continual effort, but that this was a really important step of which they should be very proud.

Advocacy Section Conclusion & Reflection

In sum, the advocacy efforts and the learning of my students exceeded even what I expected. My students demonstrated a clear ability to connect the ways that they view themselves as young individuals to advocacy efforts and the real-world problems that they see in their lives. Students also demonstrated a remarkable ability to take ownership over their learning and excel in their writing and collaboration with minimal teacher intervention or facilitation. I leaned heavily into the framework of initiating learning and then leaving it to students to further engage and lead their own learning. This was shown at multiple parts throughout this project, such as in deciding the division of labor among groups, taking turns reading aloud as a group, and coming up with independent solutions when the first approach for division of labor was unsuccessful. Students also demonstrated the ability to write and converse about real world issues throughout each step of this project. In their first do now, to the stop and jot, to the initial group discussions, to each draft of their letters, and to their final reflections, students demonstrated a continual ability to reflect on their own advocacy and tie it back to injustices they see in the world. Finally, students introduced a number of ideas for policy changes and postulations about the unfairness of each policy beyond what I provided them with. Students wrote that dress codes are sexist despite never being provided with such wording and that at minimum, students should be allowed one caffeinated beverage per day based on the data supporting caffeine in moderate levels having no adverse impact on health.

I would be remiss to exclude that I do not remember a time in my life when these sorts of policies (and in some cases, these exact policies) felt like some of the most arbitrary or unfair rules instituted by those in positions of authority. I found myself hoping with my students that they would receive the desired outcome and be able to feel the elation and success of their hard work at such a young age. Of course, it was a disappointment to not get there, but the reality of advocacy is that it takes gradual work and continued commitment. This too, is an ideal that I hope to help my students understand by further initiating, and not leading, their learning and advocacy. That said, I do hope my students received some level of gratification and feelings of success in receiving a response from a person who holds power. My students excelled with this activity and demonstrated a clear capacity to extend their advocacy beyond school-level policies and write to elected officials about community or state issues, as well. What was most impressive throughout this process was the way in which each student honed their understanding of their own power in creating an impact or affecting positive change. Students moved from identifying their passions to demonstrating a level of socio-political consciousness in which they posited that standing by and not speaking up is an additional form of injustice. I am immensely proud of the work my students created during this project and plan to include further advocacy efforts in my curriculum this year to continue to foster student growth.

References:

Baig, E. C. (2020, February 5). Should you let your kids have a cellphone in school? USA Today. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/02/05/should-kids-have-cellphones-at-school/4669488002/.

Heid, M. (2019, September 5). Kids and Coffee: How Safe? Time. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://time.com/5668456/coffee-kids-health/.

Scientists test what one can of an energy drink does to the human body. Newsela. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://newsela.com/read/rockstar-energydrink/id/12974/?assignment=2005975357&classroom=2005010504&content=ckued5jl000060e7oz5z3c3e3.

A teen is asking her high school to change its dress code. Newsela. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://newsela.com/read/dresscode-petition/id/33429/?assignment=2005975342&classroom=2005010504&content=ckued3mga00130cafbj084kk1.

Teenage hangups: The drastic plans to keep high schoolers off their phones. Newsela. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://newsela.com/read/keeping-teens-off-phones/id/56689/?assignment=2005975387&classroom=2005010504&content=ckued8yil000d0g8jc68fjdum.

What's Fair and unfair about student dress codes? Anti-Defamation League. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2021, from https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/table-talk/whats-fair-and-unfair-about-student-dress-codes.