Introduction

Since my students are in kindergarten, I began teaching advocacy by laying a foundation where students are empowered to use their voices, and understand their responsibility to their community, even though they are young.

At the beginning of the school year, students explored different communities, and ways communities help each other through two stories. Students identified communities in which they belong, and identified ways the characters in the stories helped, and were helped, by their communities. These lessons were completely discussion based in our ZOOM classroom, and I recorded their ideas to create a community anchor chart.

Our Clean Community

Students have explored how communities in books help each other. Our advocacy project is a chance for students to experience community participation in their own lives. Students make a text to self connection to the characters in the book by learning about how their own advocacy can help themselves and others.

The read aloud of Sofia Valdez, Future Prez was appropriate for my students because she reflects who they are; she is young and Latina. Students can make a connection to her, and then use the character as a model of how to advocate for a clean community. Students learned about injustices faced when communities experience trash build up through informational texts.

Keeping our city clean is crucial to our health, and pollution disproportionately effects communities with majority people of color. Students learn how pollution is a real world problem, that effects people and animals all over the world. After teaching students about the dangers of trash build up, they practiced their advocacy skills, and became part of a commitment to keep our community clean.

Explicit Instruction on Advocacy

During Social Studies, we discussed the injustices experienced as a result of trash build up. Students analyzed the real word consequences of an unclean community through the articles.

During ELA, I built on our conversation of community to teach about advocacy. Students then advocated for their own clean community, citing what we had learned in Social Studies.

During this project, instructional strategies used were turn & talk, citing evidence in text, create text to self connection, using visuals, and creating art. Students had the opportunity to engage in collaborative discussion as they explored multiple aspects of advocacy.

Students described how peoples’ actions affect the community. Using a read aloud to encourage this conversation was beneficial because it allowed students to make text to self connections through asking and answering questions. Furthermore, students’ conversations were enriched because they pulled knowledge from both the fiction read aloud and the nonfiction news articles.

The visuals from the illustrations in the book, and the photographs from the news articles, provided support for students in understanding and engaging with new content.

Lastly, students participated in a letter "drawing" campaign to share the importance of a clean community. Through art, students were able to advocacy to other members of our community, including families and school staff.

Students Writing About Real-World Problems

After completing the readings, students drew a pictures for the letter "drawing" campaign. While most of my students are in the pre-writing phase, they made their message clear with their pictures. Students shared their work with each other when they were done. Students also advocated to their families. Since we are virtual, some students where able to do so during class.

In their work, students reference the NewsELA articles by drawing trash on the streets. Students referenced our read aloud about Sofia Valdez multiple ways in their work. When they depict themselves and other children cleaning up, they are referencing that they learned children can work to better their community. The checkmarks and X's are a reference to the portion of the Sofia Valdez book when Sofia & her community create posters to raise awareness about their own community.

Students Speaking About Real-World Problems

Taking Action: Follow Through with OneHolyoke

Students engaged in our own community clean up, as pictured below. Our community clean up allowed students to advocate for their community in a meaningful way. Students experienced that their own actions have value in their community, as they improved the area around their school.

Student Reflections

Conclusion and Reflection

The goal of this project is not only for students to engage in contributing to a clean community, but to recognize that they can advocate for change for anything they find important. Especially since my students are young, a major goal was for students to begin to build a foundation where they are empowered to advocate, and to know they can help their community.

The first step to advocacy is the knowledge that one's voice matters. A crucial part of my students investment in advocating was understanding their own belonging in their community, and the power of their own voice. Through this project, students were able to speak individually, and work with others to create change as it pertains to real world problems.

Through speaking and writing, students used their own assets to visualize, describe, and stand up for a better community for themselves. Through action, students engaged in their community in a meaningful and joyful way, as they collectively contributed to improve their community.

As shown through students engagement in later lessons, students do not see advocacy as an isolated concept in our classroom, but an important way that children, like them, contribute to their communities. Students recognize that they can continue to advocate for change beyond our class community clean up.