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Civic Participation & Citizenship Collection
Introduction to Massachusetts Team Writings
Beth Miller Pittman, Massachusetts
The following teacher writings are a set of lesson plans generated by Massachusetts practitioners who took on the task of connecting the Civic Participation and Community Action Sourcebook to state-mandated curriculum frameworks and standards. The teachers represented a variety of organizations - the Center for New Americans, Lutheran Services, Read/Write/Now and the Massachusetts Career Development Institute, and worked with a variety of learners - newly arrived immigrants who do not speak any English, immigrants who are trying to obtain their U.S. citizenship, teenagers who have dropped out of high school and are trying to obtain their GED, older adults trying to pass the GED, etc.
Challenges and Strategies of Civic Participation
Given the many constraints they face in the classroom, the teachers were
originally unsure of how they could use the Civic
Participation and Community Action Sourcebook as a resource, especially
if this meant carrying out community projects. Challenges they faced included:
• short teaching cycles
of six to eight weeks
• irregular attendance by the learners due to lack
of childcare and erratic work schedule
• learners who were interested only in GED questions,
not community-oriented activities
• low level of English (or no English at all for
recently arrived Russian immigrants)
• low level of learner confidence
Through an iterative process of seeing what went well and what did not, however, each teacher was able to use the Sourcebook within her own context. What emerged were not full-blown civic participation and community action projects, but activities that provide the building blocks, or basic skills and tools, for civic participation. One strategy each teacher used was to explore the interest areas and needs of her students and develop civic participation-oriented activities around what emerged. One teacher, for example, who works primarily with high school dropouts and single young mothers, used film as a tool to help students reflect on community issues such as violence, racism, discrimination and the death penalty. A few teachers based their lessons on current community events such as completing the census. Rather than having the students merely go through the mechanics of filling out the census, one teacher developed lessons to help students understand the significance of completing the census and "being counted." It coincided with the class writing to their state senators and representatives to request subsequent funding for the Citizenship Assistance Program, a program that provides support to immigrants. Another teacher working with recently arrived immigrants helped them identify and get to know their new communities, using some activities from the Sourcebook as an English language needs assessment.
The Lesson Plans
A number of assumptions were made by the practitioners as they prepared
the final product:
• This document supplements the Civic Participation
and Community Action Sourcebook (meaning
that readers should have a copy of it to refer to as they use this
document).
• The building blocks of civic participation, such
as knowing who your community is, using
the phonebook, voting, etc. have to be in place before a large-scale project
is undertaken.
• A useful way to share the team's experience with
others would be through a final product
that is a practical guide for other teachers trying to incorporate similar
topics into their classes.
Each lesson starts out with an overview, followed by the connections to curriculum frameworks, and ending with a detailed lesson plan and reflections. The overview includes the name of the lesson, its connection to the sourcebook, the overall objectives and connections to civic participation and a brief description of the activity or project. The lesson plan itself contains the learner profile, materials and time required, an introduction or a pre-teaching activity, the procedure used, and a reflection section. The reflections include evaluation/evidence of learning, the teacher's reflections (what worked well, what did not, how it could be done differently, etc.), and students' reactions to the lesson. In addition, many of the accounts contain comments made by students during the course of the activity.
The ensuing lesson plans, written in a structured
format, aim to depict activities that can serve as building blocks to
civic participation and as a guide to other adult educators interested
in trying similar activities. Before people can become active in their
communities or make informed decisions, certain skills and knowledge are
needed. Using the phonebook and making a telephone call, filling out the
census and understanding its significance, identifying resources, social
services and decision-makers within a community, understanding the legislative
process, and identifying and reflecting on community issues such as violence
and discrimination, are among some of the basic building blocks depicted
in these lessons.
New
England Literacy Resource Center
World Education
Boston, MA
(617) 482-9485
