Introduction

I admit that, prior to my time as a student at Johns Hopkins University, I was skeptical of the idea of teaching advocacy to my students. Particularly as a high school teacher, I worried that the advocacy I taught students would feel hollow, because, as the Freechild Project (2019) notes, "positive outcomes rarely come [from advocacy], or if they do, not for the current generation of youth involved".

Through my studies at Johns Hopkins University, however, my view of advocacy has changed. I have been heavily influenced by the work of Adam Fletcher, and in particular, by his article "New Roles for Young People Throughout Society". Through reading this article, I realized that empowering my students to engage their academic voices and lend their ideas to the greater research community could be a powerful form of advocacy in the form of what Fletcher (2015) coins "Youth as Researchers".

As I am generally adverse to the “add-on” approach to education in which concepts such as access, advocacy, or culturally responsive teaching are layered over old curricula, I set out, with Fletcher's words as a guide, to redesign the AP Capstone curriculum in a way that allows me to make advocacy central to the work of my classroom.

Please click below to see how I initiate the advocacy process through teaching students the research skills they need to then take academic action to challenge systemic injustices with their research teams.

Conversation-Related: New Orleans' Water Issues

After deepening my understanding of advocacy through my studies at Johns Hopkins University, I restructured my AP Seminar curriculum to meaningfully engage students in learning about systemic injustices facing the city of New Orleans. Whereas prior to my Johns Hopkins University work, my first units of the year were based in philosophical debates that encouraged students to engage with their personal sense of right and wrong, I have now expanded my curriculum to include three units that tackle major water issues facing New Orleans: land elevation, the levee system, and the drainage pump system. These topics, as they are local systemic injustice issues that deeply impact my students' everyday lives, lead students to meaningfully engage in conversations around solutions to the major systemic injustice issues facing our city.

I go beyond simply providing my students with texts to springboard discussions of social injustices: I provide students with the tools to engage in their own social justice inquiry so that the impact of my advocacy teaching can be long-lasting.

Please click on the table of contents below to see how I created a curriculum grounded in the work of advocacy that provides students with the tools they need to engage in their own social justice-driven advocacy.

Restructuring My Curriculum to Target Local, Systemic Injustices

Using my John Hopkins University advocacy work as a guide, I restructured my curriculum for the 2019-2020 school year to have students grapple with, and finally lend their voice to the conversation about, New Orleans's water system issues (see image carousel below of my re-calendared September and October units). I chose the topic of New Orleans's water system issues because water deeply impacts the everyday lives of my students, thus encouraging my students to meaningfully engage in not only this topic, but other issues of systemic injustice within the greater community.

While the curriculum restructuring took the form of focusing on three major issues: land elevation, the levee system, and the pump system (see above image carousel), I strategically built into the curriculum the teaching of targeted research skills that allows students to meaningfully engage not only with the topic of New Orleans's water system issues, but other systemic injustice topics of their choosing. For example, my calendar names that I guide students through a "solutions-based argumentative writing" process, as well as including opportunities for students to create "annotated bibliographies". Teaching students these skills allows students to further engage in developing their voice to speak out against systemic injustices by providing them with the transferability necessary to create their own solutions-based "Youth as Researcher" projects (Fletcher, 2015).

Explicit Instruction: Advocacy Lesson Plan

While advocacy is at the core of my class's structure due to the implementation of a "Youth As Researcher" model (Fletcher, 2015), after taking Teaching for Transformation I and learning about the impact that explicitly naming advocacy can have on students, I added a lesson plan to my curriculum that explicitly connects for students their research work and the work of advocacy.

As I interview and choose the majority of students for my class in their ninth grade years, most students come to AP Seminar already having chosen their team and discussed their systemic injustice topic for their Solutions Week advocacy presentations with their peers. Therefore, this advocacy lesson plan's main goal is to help students connect their research work to the work of advocacy.

Above is a group's responses to the advocacy lesson. This group names on page five that "there are way too many groups of people that are silent due to fear", and that their work can "ignite a flame in them [other people] that helps overcome their own struggles as well as go out into the world and advocate for others as well", demonstrating this group's understanding of the power of voice and advocacy.

Reading and Analyzing Perspectives on New Orleans' Water Issues

The "Youth As Researcher" advocacy model implicitly argues that, without a firm grasp of the extent of a problem, one cannot adequately engage in advocacy (Fletcher, 2015).

Unfortunately, due to the adoption of new, standardized English and History curricula across the KIPP New Orleans network, there are currently no other curricula at Frederick A. Douglass High School that ask students to read argumentative texts, nor do these other curricula explicitly teach students how to create argumentative writing, the backbone of a strong "Youth as Researchers" advocacy approach. As a result, I use mentor texts centered in the systemic injustice of New Orleans's water systems as an instructional tool for teaching students how to create their own argumentative writing about real-world problems.

Analyzing Arguments

In order to help students develop their own argumentative voice to advocate for solutions to issues of systemic injustice, as well as to provide students with the ability to evaluate credible sources so as to be well-informed citizens, I explicitly teach students to deconstruct authors' arguments.

Using texts focused on New Orleans, and the greater Gulf Coast region,'s water issues, I walk students through analyzing text evidence an author uses (see above, left image carousel for a student example) in order to determine its credibility. In the example above, Student A has highlighted different types of evidence, differentiating between qualitative and quantitative evidence the author uses. Teaching students how to identify quantitative and qualitative evidence in a mentor text is one of the early instructional strategies I use to develop students' understanding of how to construct their own, compelling arguments that will add their academic voices to the greater conversations around systemic injustices.

Additionally, we spend several weeks as a class delineating authors' central arguments and identifying authors' subclaims (see above, right document for a student example) in order for students to deeply understand the water issues facing New Orleans so they can more actively speak and write about these issues. Student B's analysis (see above, right document) delineates precisely how Grisham created his argument, which then allows Student B the framework from which to both speak and write his own perspectives in a convincing manner.

Seminal Authors During the "Youths as Researchers" Process

In the New Orleans water issues units, I explicitly teach students the value of finding seminal authors on a given topic to include in their research process. Richard Campanella, a Tulane professor and an expert on New Orleans's water system issues, is one of the author's arguments we analyze as a class.

We analyze Campanella's argument (see above image carousel for an example of a student's annotations) in order to deepen our understanding of the systemic injustices posed by the disparity in land elevation across New Orleans. Furthermore, the analysis of Campanella's argument provides students with a model text to use as a guide as they meaningfully engage in their own argumentative writing process.

Hyperlocalism: Destroying the Lower Nine

In order to ground the New Orleans water issues unit in a hyperlocal context, we read "Destroying the Lower Nine", a text that names the particular plight faced by the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans post-Katrina.

As my school is located in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and over a third of my students live in the Lower Ninth Ward, this text is particularly resonant for my students. As Student A names in her gist statement on page seven (see image carousel above, seventh image): "officials casting recovery of the community as futile and impossible [post-Katrina]...nobody wanting to claim this community[;] it was left abandon[ed]". Student A's gist statement demonstrates her meaningful engagement in the topic of water systems issues in New Orleans based on the teacher-provided materials, and demonstrates her growing understanding of the systemic injustices around water that plagues New Orleans, and in particular, predominantly Black, low-income communities.

Gist Statements and Note-Taking

In order to prepare students for the authentic research process in which they will engage in finding solutions to systemic injustice topics of their choosing, I explicitly teach students how to take notes and create gist statements from online articles.

After we delineate author's arguments on paper, I teach students how to take bullet-point notes on online texts that they read and to highlight the most salient points from the text (see image carousel above, first image, for a student's example notes). I also teach students to create gist statements on texts that they read from online sources (see image carousel above, second image, for an example of a student's gist statement).

I see the instructional strategies of explicitly teaching note-taking and creating gist statements as vital to students engaging in their own, meaningful research on systemic injustices. As students will need to access online texts from EBSCOHost when they engage in their own research, I give students the means of collecting information beyond the texts which I explicitly provide them. These online texts continue the topic of New Orleans's water systems issues to further deepen students' understanding of this real-life problem that plagues our community.

Tools of Independent Research

While providing students with teacher-sourced documents is vital as a first step in teaching advocacy, I believe that an absolutely necessary component in teaching students about advocacy is providing them with the tools and skills to gather information on their own. As my goal in teaching advocacy is to build life-long learners who can inform themselves on systemic injustice topics they are passionate about, and thus lend their informed opinions to their greater communities, I use instructional strategies that give students the tools to engage in their own, independent research, thus making the process of advocating for solutions to systemic injustices a reproducible one.

50 Source Assignment

To teach students to gather their own texts for a "Youth as Researcher" advocacy model (Fletcher, 2015), I have students engage in a 50 Source Assignment (see document below for a student example).

Above is Student E's 50 Source Assignment for New Orleans's water systems. Student E uses the instructional strategies of highlighting salient information and bullet pointing notes from online sources in order to gather research for her own argumentative work.

Through the 50 Source Assignment process in which students gather online resources, students learn to navigate both open and closed sources in order to be able to speak and write on real-world systemic injustices.

RAVENing Sources (College Board, 2020)

In order to provide my students with the tools they need to engage in their own "Youth As Researcher" advocacy work in the future (Fletcher, 2015), I teach my students to evaluate the credibility of the sources they read online using The College Board (2020)'s "RAVENing" technique (see below document for a student example).

"RAVEN" is an acronym for Reputation, Ability to Observe, Vested interest, Expertise, and Neutrality. I teach students to use this acronym to evaluate credibility when using online sources in their work. Not only does using the RAVEN method provide students with a tool to evaluate credibility of online sources on their own, it also ensures that students have a tool to critically examine authors' works so they can make informed decisions as to what they choose to cite in their own advocacy work.

Above is Student D's "RAVENing Sources" document. Student D uses the RAVENing approach to determine the credibility of an online source regarding the income disparity issues inherent in New Orleans's land elevation issues.

Annotated Bibliographies

Explicitly teaching students how to create annotated bibliographies helps students not only to learn citation methods for use in their argumentative advocacy work, but annotated bibliographies as an instructional tool also provides students an organized way to engage in their own advocacy work in the future.

After I teach students how to gather and evaluate online resources, I instruct students on how to create annotated bibliographies to use in their work.

Above is Student E's annotated bibliography on New Orleans's water systems. Student E includes open sources and closed sources in her annotated bibliography to create a balanced source list which she can cite in her written work on New Orleans's water issues.

Public Speaking 101

I believe that there is little conversation about explicitly teaching students how to use their voice to convey their ideas. This is particularly true in low-income schools in New Orleans, where Speech and Debate programs are rare due to budget constraints.

In an attempt to close some of my students' public speaking gap, I explicitly teach students how to speak publicly on systemic injustice issues in preparation for their own social justice presentations during Solutions Week.

Public Speaking Practice

Every day at the beginning of class, students read an article of their choosing from The New York Times; then, they create a gist statement and several questions of inquiry from what they read. Not only does this strategy allow students multiple repetitions of the gist statement and research question creation process about systemic injustice topics, it also allows students the raw material from which to practice their public speaking.

I demystify public speaking for students by having them focus on five key areas of presentation: eye contact, tempo, volume, movement, and gestures. Students take their The New York Times gist statements and read them daily to their partner (see above, left, for an example of a practice round). In the example above, Student F performs her gist statement; then, Student G gives Student F targeted feedback using the public speaking language.

Students track their progress in public speaking using a dot graph with a y-axis of a six-point rubric (see above, middle, for a student example). In the student example, there is evidence that I not only have students track their progress over time, but I have students give themselves feedback using the five target areas for improvement for the next time.

Students present on their best The New York Times gist statement at the end of the first New Orleans water systems unit (see above, right, for an example student presentation). Students' presentations demonstrate their growth in public speaking, not only to their classmates, but to themselves. These brief presentations prepare students to engage in the difficult work of advocating for solutions to real-world issues during Solutions Week.

New Orleans Water System Presentations

At the end of the second New Orleans water system unit, students present their research questions on the levee system to the class. These short presentations give students the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of research question development to their class, as well as reinforce the public speaking skills they developed in the first New Orleans water systems unit. As students continue to develop their informed, argumentative voices on systemic injustices, these presentations serve as a milestone on their journey as "Youth As Researchers" (Fletcher, 2015) towards advocating for their own social justice causes.

The group above presents to the class at the end of the second New Orleans water systems unit. This group begins by establishing their area of inquiry; then, they delineate the perspectives and stakeholders under different lenses on the topic.

Research Question Creation Process

The creation of a viable, action-driven research question is the cornerstone of the "Youth As Researchers" Youth Voice model (Fletcher, 2015). In order to provide my students with the skills necessary to create their own research questions delving into systemic injustice issues, I guide students through a deliberate research question creation process on the New Orleans water system issues.

Evaluating Teacher-Created Research Questions

In Unit Two of the New Orleans water systems units, I teach students how to assess research questions using a set of criteria.

Above is a student's work evaluating teacher-made research questions in the second unit of the New Orleans water system issues units. By beginning with teacher-made research questions, I provide students with models that they can use later as they craft their own advocacy projects.

While all of the criteria are essential to the creation of a viable research question, the criteria of "Is the purpose to find a solution?" drives students towards seeing the research process as fundamentally tied to the work of voice and advocacy.

Creating Viable Research Questions

After learning the criteria of a viable research question, students follow through by creating their own research questions in Unit Three of the New Orleans water systems unit.

The most important element of the research question is the solutions-orientation, as it drives the research process towards viable solutions to combat the systemic injustices facing our world.

Writing About New Orleans' Water System Issues

Students have multiple opportunities to write about the systemic injustices facing New Orleans due to water issues throughout the three units of study.

One such opportunity is at the end of the second unit, when students write argumentative pieces that advocate for a solution to the levee system issues.

In these essays, students use the teacher-provided readings from the unit, as well as their newfound understanding of constructing arguments gained through analyzing teacher-provided argumentative texts, to construct their own argumentative essays that advocate for a solution to the levee system issues. Notably, it is rare for two students to come to the same solution to the New Orleans levee problem, demonstrating students' arguments move far beyond my teacher-provided information.

Taking Action on Systemic Injustices: Solutions Week

While New Orleans's water systems issues is a topic about which I feel passionately, I believe the real goal of teaching students advocacy--and particularly in the case of teaching high school students, as they tend to want to use their newly-acquired skills to enact change in their own areas of interest--should be to give students the tools to argue for their own social justice causes.

Thus, using their newly-acquired research and argumentative skills gained through the direct instruction in the New Orleans water issues units, students add their individual assets to their research team to advocate for change to systemic injustices facing our world. Students' research processes culminate in "Solutions Week", a presentations week in which students use the power of their research voice to follow through and propose workable solutions to systemic injustices. Student researchers present their work to their classmates, school administration, family, community members, and key stakeholders. While advocacy often does not lead to immediate, real change (Freechild Project, 2019), Solutions Week gives students an authentic platform from which to argue for viable solutions to problems.

Formulating Research Questions to Combat Systemic Injustices

In order to begin navigating their "Youth As Researcher" advocacy work (Fletcher, 2015), students create a research question on a systemic justice issue of their group's choosing.

Students explicitly challenge systemic injustices by wording their research questions around finding a solution, thus preparing them to advocate for change during Solutions Week.

Navigating Systemic Injustices: Annotated Bibliographies

During the annotated bibliography process, students navigate the systemic injustice of their research group's choosing, leveraging their individual research assets to then present a collective solution to their chosen systemic injustice topic during Solutions Week.

The example group's annotated bibliographies (above) demonstrate how each research group member engages with their systemic injustice issue through a specific lens in order to add their proposed solution to the group's final, collective response.

Individual Research Reports

Students use the skills acquired during the New Orleans water issues unit to write academic research reports that not only cite seminal works on their topic, but suggest potential solutions to their systemic injustice issue.

The Individual Research Report serves as a culmination of students' navigation of their social justice issue by utilizing their individual research assets gained through the New Orleans water systems unit. In the next stage of preparation for Solutions Week, students must leverage their collective research team's asset to propose a viable solution to their systemic injustice issue.

Challenging Systemic Injustices: Solutions Week Presentations

Above is Student P, Q, and R's presentation advocating to reduce the cost of college for minorities. At second 36 in the video, Student R cites academic research, thus displaying that the group's advocacy is argumentative rather than persuasive in nature. From 0:01:10 to 0:01:46 in the video, Student R delineates the group's solution to the issue, giving credit to the Democratic Party for their proposal of the College Affordability Act, but also naming that the Act does not go far enough to meet the needs of minority students. Through their presentations, students have the opportunity to voice their well-researched arguments on systemic injustices facing our world and argue for nuanced, viable solutions.

Above is Student P, Q, and R's PowerPoint slides. On slide five, this group argues for a three-part solution to the issue of the cost of college tuition on minority students. Their plan argues for not only the passing of the College Affordability Act, but also calls for the government and colleges to share accountability for enacting the plan. Student P, Q, and R's work demonstrates that students meaningfully engage in the social justice topic of their choosing, and that they advocate for solutions to real-world social justice issues that go beyond simply calling for obvious solutions that do not consider necessary accountability measures.

Researchers' presentations follow through on the promise made in the New Orleans water systems unit that they will be given the tools to argue for solutions to issues that profoundly impact them. In the above example video, Students P, Q, and R underscore the importance of their chosen topic, college cost on minority students, because the systemic injustice "directly affects us. Since we are a part of the minority group, we need to find a solution" (Student Q, 0:00:08-0:00:15), thus naming their understanding that research gives them the power to solve major, systemic injustices that plague our world.

Impact of Solutions Week on Student Advocacy

The central goal of Solutions Week is to give students an authentic platform to advocate for solutions to systemic injustice issues in an effort to create life-long, engaged citizens.

In the video below, Student A describes the impact that her research had on her understanding of herself as an advocate. From seconds 15 through 25, Student A names that her project "really opened up my eyes to the fact of how misinformed and just generally uninformed we are as a whole on problems that go on in our own society." In this part, Student A validates the "Youth As Researcher" advocacy model as a means of engaging students in knowledge about their community with the goal of advocacy (Fletcher, 2015). Furthermore, Student A names that her research "sparked my interest in social advocacy and politics" (0:00:31-0:00:34), and that her research "didn't stop after I finished my essay" (0:00:35-0:00:37). Through her testimonial, Student A demonstrates the dramatic impact that the "Youth As Researchers" model has on engaging students in the process of navigating and challenging systemic injustices in the real world.

In the testimonial below, Student S names that going through the "Youth As Researcher" advocacy process (Fletcher, 2015) provided her with the opportunity to "amplify [her] voice" (0:00:11-0:00:13). She ends by naming that she learned through the research process that her "voice could have a huge impact on today's world" (0:00:51-0:00:55), thereby demonstrating her commitment to life-long advocacy for herself and her community.

In the video below Student T explains that "being able to research something that I was passionate about changing, and finding a solution to it, gave me a sense of hope that the bad things going on the world will change" (0:00:13-0:00:23), demonstrating her meaningful engagement in the research process. Student T continues by describing the role that Solutions Week had on her understanding of her role in her community: "...I realized that I want to be the kind of person that advocates for their community and advocates for people who can't advocate for themselves..." (0:00:34-0:00:42). Student T demonstrates the way in which my AP Seminar students who engage in the "Youth As Researchers" advocacy process (Fletcher, 2015) move beyond what I teach them to commit to the work of advocacy moving forward.

Conclusion

In "New Roles for Young People Throughout Society", Fletcher (2015) clearly states that there are myriad ways for students to find and add their voice to the greater community. However, I believe that the value of the "Youth as Researcher" is often overlooked, as this form of advocacy often seeks to make long-term change, and is therefore less "flashy" than other forms of advocacy. However, as Fletcher (2015) also states, the ultimate goal of teaching students advocacy and voice should be to "weave an intricate blanket of engagement that captures people for all their lives". Through a deliberate approach to teaching advocacy that asks students not only to engage with a teacher-provided problem, but to create viable solutions to real-world problems that are meaningful to them, I seek to help students become life-long activists who realize that their academic gifts can be a powerful vehicle for making lasting, systemic change to combat the injustices present in our world.

References

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Campanella, R. (2018, February 8). How humans sank New Orleans. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/how-humans-sank-new-orleans/552323/

The College Board. (2016, Fall). AP Seminar course and exam description [PDF File]. Retrieved from https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-seminar-course-and-exam-description.pdf

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Fletcher, A. (2015, December 11). New roles for young people throughout society [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://treasure.over-blog.com/2015/12/new-roles-for-young-people-throughout-society.html

Freechild Project. (2019). How youth engagement happens. Retrieved from https://freechild.org/technical-assistance/actions/

Grisham, J. (2005, September 25). The Gulf will rise again. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/opinion/the-gulf-will-rise-again.html

Newman, R. (1974). Louisiana 1927 [Song]. On Good old boys [Album]. Warner Bros. Studios.

Prior, R. (2019, July 11). Why New Orleans is vulnerable to flooding: It's sinking. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/us/new-orleans-sinking-into-sea-trnd/index.html

Rivlin, G. (2015, August 13). Destroying the Lower Nine. Retrieved from https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2015/08/13/destroying-lower-nine/