This fall, after a sleepless night after thinking too much about an upcoming class assignment and drinking three cups of not-so-strong coffee, I put the finishing touches on a recent assignment for students in my World History II class.
I was finally satisfied with the plan for my Year 10 students. When the plan worked for me, none of this really mattered.
To be clear, this assignment requires students to analyze a document and use evidence to write their own response, which is of course an important skill, but will inevitably lead to some crazy red ink paper that is ultimately written. me He was assigned an essay that only he could read. me.
Unfortunately, the inkblots of my students' work and my feedback never made it into the hands of readers who could make a difference. So the time students spend writing and the time I spend grading has no impact outside the walls of the classroom.
It was a crazy moment of clarity for me. Sure, your writing skills may have been practiced, but so what? For what purpose? As a high school social studies teacher, my job includes helping students learn how to use evidence to make arguments, engage in civil discourse, and take informed action to bring about change. The key part of this is that students real world.
But there are forces that stand in the way. For example, curriculum directives and pressures from school and district leaders can create teaching and learning environments that promote isolated work assignments. As I considered some of my recent assignments, I realized that's exactly what I'm doing. These writing practices embodied the work without any deep value or true audience. As a result, my students were only completing one grade level and had completely forgotten why they were learning it. I couldn't blame them.
I had a related revelation a few years ago. why There is a problem. Since then, I have redesigned the curriculum, focusing on the most important questions in each unit so that we can explore contemporary and relevant issues with our students. I like to think of this change as a shift from content-based to issue-based curriculum.
As I reflected on the evolution of my curriculum and why I was teaching what I was teaching, I questioned how I tackled the tasks I assigned to my students.
While searching for research and ideas on how to make a difference, a good friend of mine recommended a talk by Larry McEnerney, who served as director of the writing program at the University of Chicago for 30 years, on the art of effective writing. While McEnerney spoke to graduate students, some of his points resonated deeply in his work with high school students. In particular, he pointed out the hard truth about writing in the education system. “Teachers read texts because they are paid to take care of their students. You learned how to write in a system where you wrote to readers who were paid to look after you. It will stop,” McEnerney said.
This serves as a reminder that ad hoc assignments can hinder students' writing skills because they write with only the teacher and the assignment in mind and not with true readers interested in deepening their own understanding or making a difference. I did.
With McEnerney's point in mind, I began to wonder how I could provide students with opportunities to write in a variety of contexts that would benefit real audiences.
I wanted to build on the curriculum updates I had created to develop more meaningful assignments for students to write for a readership that could make a difference. If we can give students more opportunities to interact with these issues, they will why their learning.
Giving students something to talk about
In order for students to say interesting, meaningful, and authentic things, they need interesting, meaningful, and authentic stories.
This is not a novel idea. Teaching methods developed with these ideas in mind include project-based learning, which focuses on helping students build skills by carrying out purposeful, engaging projects, and inquiry-based learning, which allows students to develop their own questions. And curious about the content. And this concept has been the driving force behind my curriculum redesign to focus on real, timely, and urgent issues that impact students.
To develop writing assignments that promote student agency and empowerment, I knew I had to consider my audience. Who will read their work?
At first, I started small, taking “The Early Republic” as a unit in my American history class. And I thought about why students need to learn that content, how it's relevant today, and what kinds of assignments might provide opportunities for students. Write for an audience that will motivate them.
This unit covered the Constitutional Convention, the formation of factions in early American history, and the establishment of the United States' system of government. By reorienting this unit around interesting problems, we've created critical essential questions that address issues students can relate to. “Who are we, people?” In the preamble to the U.S. Constitution?
By shifting the focus of the unit from historical content to this essential question, we were able to help students explore a variety of contemporary issues, including representation, government structure, and voter suppression. Students began to think more critically about who is represented by the Constitution and, more importantly, who is not represented.
In previous years, this unit concluded with an essay in which students responded to the Essential Questions. This year, I decided to experiment with a new assignment that would help students advocate for potential policy changes that would better represent “the people” by writing letters to legislators, nonprofits, lobbyists, or political action groups.
This turning point changed everything for the students. In addition to learning about the Constitutional Convention and early American history, they learned how to use their writing to advocate for issues they care about. They brainstormed people and organizations to work with and send their work to. Because they had stakes beyond grades, they began seeking feedback on their work before sending it out. It even sparked a meta-debate about whether students are part of ‘us, the people’ and whether their voices can inspire change.
After successfully reworking this assignment, I tried it with a unit in my world history class called “The Atlantic Revolution,” which included the American, French, Haitian, and Mexican revolutions.
I have already reorganized this unit from focusing solely on historical content to applying historical understanding to contemporary challenges, especially the essential question: “Is America headed toward political violence?” Students evaluated the usefulness of various academic theories, including Louis Gottschalk's revolutionary theory and symbolic politics theory, and determined which theory was the most comprehensive and applied it to modern America.
Instead of concluding the unit by having students write another essay, I gave them the opportunity to write to a political theorist, scholar, law enforcement official, member of Congress, or news expert. The theories they studied.
They started asking questions like, “Who should I write to?” and “Who actually has the power to change things?” and “How do I get contact information for people in power?” Developing more realistic writing opportunities makes the historical content of our units more vivid and useful to students.
Beyond the curriculum
My biggest fear as a teacher is when a student raises their hand in class and sincerely asks, “Why do we need to know this?” and I stumble and get a clear and important answer. These nightmares keep me up at night (hence the need for three cups of coffee).
Situating my units around important contemporary issues helped my students see the value of what they were learning, and designing assignments that gave them the ability to make a difference made their purpose clearer. It was fascinating to watch students engage with the content more meaningfully through their interactions with the world outside the classroom.
This idea was very important to me as a social studies teacher, but it goes beyond social studies classes. To engage students in deep learning across disciplines, teachers can reflect on their content and ask themselves questions such as “Why am I teaching this?” and “Is this the most meaningful assignment I can provide?” If the answers are unsatisfactory, it can be helpful to center on key issues where students can apply their learning.
I entered this profession to make a difference. What really matters is not whether students can recall information for a quiz or write a formal five-paragraph essay. What is most important to me is that they see value in what they are learning, develop agency in how they engage with it, and believe that their voice matters in the world.