Herein, the unit on reimaging the voting system emerges as an opportunity for students to critically analyze the effects of low voter turnout and "my vote don't count" mentalities. This unit seeks to inspire student’s civic voices while educating them on the importance of the voting process. This section details the development of our voting systems unit and the student outcomes generated through group discussions and collaborative ingenuity. 

I began planning with a Nearpod adapted focus question of "how might we redesign our voting system to increase voter turnout in Clarksdale, MS?". This question was chosen to help narrow student thinking towards supporting our local community rather than tackling the overwhelming challenges of the macro voting system. Also, the benefit of the focus question provides a simpler entryway into how students may begin to evoke positive change in their local community. A common apprehension for students is not knowing where to begin or how to utilize their civic voice, so this unit works to show one method of civic participation by contacting our local representatives. 

In the prior unit, our class explored the essential structure of our government and evaluated the constitutional framework. This primed students with the general knowledge of our federal and state checks and balances system, but also the importance of electing representatives who serve all people's best interests. The voting systems unit plan outlines specific texts, journal articles, and videos used in the culmination of our unit project. These are used to progressively enable students to understand the historical changes and contemporary limitations of all American's right to vote. The essential questions ensure a build-up to the final project by first defining the role of voting then ending with ideas on enabling our community to vote. 

I collected the informational texts provided for historical context from Teaching Tolerance and iCivics learning plans. These two sites were chosen because of their meaningful approach to crafting engaging informational texts and social justice initiatives to support youth civic participation. The grade levels are inclusive of my 12th-grade classroom and were adjusted to meet my ELL learners. Additionally, local newspaper articles and the Explained documentary "Whose Vote Counts" series provided greater context to national and local voting challenges. The articles explore Mississippian contextual voting issues, while the documentary introduces historical voter suppression and ongoing gerrymandering efforts. Snapshots of these resources are located below to highlight abstract examples of the course content. 

While planning this unit, the learning approach was to utilize a combination of outside independent reading and in-class discussions to prioritize class time. The limitations of virtual learning reduce the opportunities for in-class discussion, so the student's completed nearly half of the informational text readings outside of class. While class time was devoted to exploring the twenty-minute documentary, various online articles, and project work time. The outside class time required students to complete text-dependent questions and the in-class time used Nearpod collaborative board discussions and open-ended questions to enable critical thinking skills about contemporary challenges. Most importantly, the culminating unit project was the student's opportunity to begin applying their unique ideas to supporting their local community voter base. This is where student groups created presentations and worked to format their letters to local representatives.

The lesson and project implementation stage highlights the Nearpod slide deck, voting project template, and student response samples. The Nearpod slide deck was adapted from an original iCivics lesson. The adapted components include the Fairvote webquest, Mississippi voting articles, Jamboard activity, and the culminating project. This approach was chosen to actively engage the virtual classroom and promote creative thinking and content discovery. In addition, the Nearpod sections progressed through several stages including empathizing with voters, exploring contemporary challenges, brainstorming ideas, and customizing a prototype. The first stage begins with an emotional connection to the voter using a 360-degree image of voting lines and a question about the ramifications of discouraged voters. This correlated to conversations about the upcoming election and "how we might" (focus question) reimagine the voting system in Clarksdale to support our community during the pandemic. The second stage offered students the chance to explore Mississippi voter laws and compare this to other states. The Nearpod Report samples show our class’s discussion on Mississippi voter trends. The third step focused on brainstorming new ideas about engaging our voting community. The Jamboard samples show our classes brilliant ideas for increasing voter turnout. Finally, the fourth step pushed students to actively implement select ideas in their culminating project. The student samples section highlights the informational tables, presentations, and critical thinking. The letters to the representatives appear on the next page. 

The journey of our advocacy learning begins with a breakdown of the term. The slide deck on the top left highlights the introductory lesson used to inform my students of advocacy. I adapted a Nearpod lesson on advocacy and resourcefulness life skills to support my voting systems unit. This resource was chosen for the special emphasis on self-advocacy and resourcefulness. I wanted to connect students to how they personally advocate for their needs and then making the connection to how people advocate for their community’s needs, too. The follow-up lesson included an adapted lesson from Teaching Tolerance on identifying community, activism, and results of activism. This proved helpful in supporting my students’ view of their community and raising awareness of how they can participate in community activities. Our class took the momentum gained from the introductory advocacy lesson and applied it to the issue of advocating for voter access.

The student work below highlights various sections of their voting systems project. The project template encouraged collaborative effort from the team and offered a sense of direction to progressively explore their brainstorming ideas. Other samples include a slide deck presentation on one group’s idea of drive-thru voting opportunities during the pandemic and short Flipgrid audio segments introducing two students’ project ideas. These samples show the slow build-up from the initial brainstorming session to organizing their ideas to visualizing presentations. 

The student work below highlights a number of creative ideas used to reimagine the local voting system. The Jamboard samples express student ingenuity in tackling the problems they saw as most important. I pushed students to think of as many ideas as possible with no limitations on whether the idea was realistic. This prompted students to create outrageous ideas that would never work, but also ideas such as "drive-thru voting", "voter sticker discounts", and community promotion events to raise morale and encourage participation. The realistic ideas outweigh the outrageous ideas and helped students dial in on their approach. 

The big issue students had while working on the collaborative project document was supporting an idea without a clear way of how to approach it. A lot of students focused on incentives, but after some teacher commentary, they soon narrowed their ideas to reflect step-by-step plans to actualize change. These adaptations included setting up meetings with local leadership (i.e. mayor), contacting local businesses, and involving schools in the process.

 The audio segments highlight a few samples of what students imagined would be possible in their community. The second audio clip emphasized galvanizing community turnout and encouraging access to absentee voting. In Mississippi, issues of voter suppression challenge the possibility of absentee voting, but the student's confirmation of the idea stands as a symbol of potential change for the community. The first video segment emphasized involving local artists to promote community events and encourage civic education opportunities. Similar to the YelloPain message, our local artists could lead a role in influencing voter turnout in our own community and prompt awareness of community needs. The students' idealism highlights their optimistic vision and advocacy plan to reimagine the voting system in Clarksdale.

The student sample reflections below signify the culmination ending of our unit. Students spent fifteen minutes independently reflecting on their learning and the major ideas which stood out to them. Many of these reflections emphasized student's feeling energized to support their local community. One student noted "We're soon to be 18 or already are 18, so we could actually make the change instead of sitting around debating about it, talking about it, and not going anywhere with the conversation as far as a history class or history report. This is a chance for our voices to be heard, and the people to see the grief that we've been discussing since middle school." Other responses aligned to a similar perspective on feeling inspired to advocate for community change. These reflections show the student's internalizing the information and visualizing ways to advocate for change beyond simply learning about it in a classroom. 

The advocacy lesson demonstrates an integral component of inspiring student civic participation. The samples highlight a snapshot of the lesson's long-term impacts on student connection to voter activism. Students engaged in a real-world application through class discussions and generating their own voting turnout prototypes. The impacts of this unit are indicative by student reflections about how they may continue to take part in advocating for positive change. Knowing that students walked away equipped with knowledge about voting systems and inspirational idealism to advocate for change shows the potential long-term possibilities that this project may have on shaping student mindsets. The road does not stop here. Students clearly stated in their reflections the need for voting equity and access within their community. Therefore, future change may begin with these young changemakers leading the charge. 

The next page dives into how students advocated for their ideas to be recognized by their local representatives.