Advocacy
To demonstrate mastery of advocacy teachers must illustrate that students have knowledge of injustice in the world, have informed opinions about it, and know that their voice and actions have value. They can advocate for themselves and others as well as have the ability to speak, write, and think about real-world problems.
Introduction
My students are aware of injustices in the United States and around the world. In my classroom students have conducted research to gather knowledge and inform their opinions about real-world problems and systemic injustices. As a class, we have engaged in activities that demonstrated my students can advocate for themselves as well as others. We had a Socratic seminar about Black Lives Matter, police brutality, and racism and a debate about gun violence and metal detectors in schools. In addition, to thinking, writing, and speaking about real-world problems my students have taken action. My students knew that together they could make a difference. They used the power of their voices to draft letters to elected officials in our government and collectively advocate for change on a variety of issues, climate change, the hunger crisis, and the drug epidemic. Click the links below to see how I developed my students into advocates who take action and who think, speak, and write about real-world problems.
Conclusion
My students are advocates for change. My students have developed informed opinions through research and personal experiences. My students know that their voices have value and they deiced to use that power to take action. They become advocates through writing letters demanding change from elected officials and by creating and presenting climate change crisis stories to students at Eisner Middle School. In my classroom my students engaged in thinking, speaking, and writing related to advocacy through Socratic seminars and debates. In these activities, my students advocated for themselves and others as the discussed real-world problems such as wealth inequality and police brutality. I cannot wait to see the impact my students will have as they continue to grow as advocates.
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