Amidst All the Noise: Creating Space for Student Voice and Advocacy
Amidst All the Noise: Creating Space for Student Voice and Advocacy
Simple Tech Moves to Help Organize Student Driven Research Practices
While getting ready for work today, I saw an article that a friend of mine posted from ProPublica.org about Cobb County Schools in which a school board member blames the spikes in COVID-19 in the county on “illegal immigrants.” I was planning on leading a lesson today with my students on beginning research, media bias, and source evaluation. This article helps students see how a news article can have multiple central ideas and fit several topics, in this case, racism, immigration, and the pandemic. ProPublica uncovers teacher and student experiences through powerful investigative journalism and helps to amplify voices that are currently struggling to be heard, and provides context for the noise that is currently taking up space in our classrooms.
In our 10th-grade classroom, we are currently wrapping up another round of young adult literature (YAL) reading groups. For the past month, students in groups of four to five have been reading their choice of novel, having discussions, and doing skill work. Each iteration of these reading groups brings me to the same question:
Once students finish their books, what’s next?
They read and discuss Starr’s character arc from Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and how she struggles against systemic racism and works to forge a stronger and more unified community out of deep tragedy.
Students learn about a culinary prodigy, Emoni, in Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High, who overcomes challenging odds as a single mother trying to achieve her dreams and complete high school.
Dozens of stories, lives read and digested, page by page - my students generate rich discussions and have powerful moments. Then the books end, and they return to their lives. But what if this was just the beginning? What are students supposed to do when their leaders are prejudiced against their very existence? How can students exist in spaces that create violence against their families, culture, and heritage?
I don’t have all the answers, but I know that technology can help us make some room for students and their voices.
So much of education is taking up space (noise) in our classrooms right now; I mean education with a capital E. Testing, prescriptive curriculum, fill-in-the-blank notes, purchased programs - I have to ask…where is the room for our students? Where is the room for their voices in all this noise? Youth participatory action research (YPAR) and democratic literacy practices can provide an answer (Garcia & Mirra, 2021; Mirra et al., 2015; Mirra & Garcia, 2020). We can leverage technology to create space for the voices that matter most. Here’s how we started this work.
Students take a Google survey that collects big topics from their YAL books.
I compiled the topics into 10-12 broader categories and gave students a choice of these as research groups, while also folding in an essay contest from the EJI and the Gwinnett Rememberance Coalition that is open to all Gwinnett students. This way students can choose to select from a topic related to their book groups OR a topic about racial justice that would help them write their essay as an end product for the unit.
Students then start researching - I put together a collection of news and database sources on a single Google Doc that allows them to research easily. I also provided a quick discussion about media bias using the image below and showed them where they could find this Reddit link for a more complex media bias chart…
Once students select their articles, they post them to a Padlet. Students build text sets on the very first day of the unit. We’ll spend the unit using these texts for our skills work and for our research. Students will continue to add as they go!
Finally, students did a CRAAP test after quickly going over some basic information about CRAAP. This is a great way to start the conversation on quality sources and using a critical eye towards critical media literacy. If you’re interested in more information on this topic, I’d recommend checking out Chris Goering’s work, including Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America.
This is just the start of our research - students will evaluate stances and opinions, track central ideas, analyze the effectiveness of word choice, and construct new meaning on topics that are the most relevant, interesting, and important to them. Where do we go next? Let’s try some activism work. This could be a podcast, advertisement, multi-media composition, or website. I would recommend reviewing NCTE’s position statement on the Definition of Literacy in a Digital Age.
Maybe student performance finals will look like an essay submission to a writing contest. Maybe performance finals will look like organizing a protest. Why do we just have to read about characters creating equity in YAL when we can create space in our classrooms for the voices that matter most and help students to work towards more equity in their lives?
References
Garcia, A., & Mirra, N. (2021). Writing toward justice: Youth speculative civic literacies in online policy discourse. Urban Education, 56(4), 640-669. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=eric&AN=EJ1287965&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=gsu1
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042085920953881
Mirra, N., Filipiak, D., & Garcia, A. (2015). Revolutionizing inquiry in urban English classrooms: Pursuing voice and justice through youth participatory action research. English Journal, 105(2), 49-57.
Mirra, N., & Garcia, A. (2020). "I Hesitate but I Do Have Hope": Youth Speculative Civic Literacies for Troubled Times. Harvard Educational Review, 90(2), 295-321. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=eric&AN=EJ1262923&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=gsu1
https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-90.2.295
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