Tuesday, March 28, 2017

recent collaborative effort between a high school social studies teacher and a school librarian transformed a “same-old” unit on social movements in the 20th century into a dynamic study of effective social activism—and how students can become effective activists. Using both primary and secondary resources, students learned to analyze social issues, then to identify the type of activism that proved effective for those issues. Next, students selected social situations important to them, analyzed the changes they sought to effect, and determined a means of activism to effect that change in practical—and often surprising—ways. The project’s design and implementation is straightforward and replicable. This session provides concrete steps to follow, specific patterns for locating learning resources, and reproducible forms that educators can carry back to their own campuses.