Jack Trowbridge – Final Project Proposal

Jack TrowbridgeAnn

Project Title: Teaching Contemporary U.S. Politics

 

Essential Question(s):

How can I use my knowledge of American civics/politics/law to inspire others to think more critically about current events?

 

Statement of Purpose

For my Senior Project, I will create a course for middle school students that will help them understand and discuss U.S. politics and current events in a more nuanced way.

 

Overview: Describe your topic and project to the committee.

When I was in 8th grade, American politics seemed totally beyond my understanding. Donald Trump, a candidate whose flippant prejudice defied reality, was elected, and I was incredibly disappointed. I know there was little I could have done at thirteen to influence the outcome of the election (on a broad scale), but were there things that I could have known that would have tempered my emotional reaction to Trump’s victory? Could it have been a better understanding of the electoral process or of the government bodies that would institute (or strike down) his policy proposals?

My understanding of U.S. politics began to truly take shape when I took Ann Carroll’s Constitutional Law course in eleventh grade. In each class, we debated a previously-decided Supreme Court case, using the Constitution and legal precedent to craft persuasive arguments. Being challenged by my peers in such a rigorous environment forced me to confront a variety of perspectives on the U.S. Constitution. 

As I look back one Presidential election, two impeachments, and three new Supreme Court justices ago, I see my eighth-grade self, devastated and confused by seemingly out-of-control politics. Something that I have now that I did not have back then is a belief in the power of political education to make the current events seem less chaotic. This belief has been invaluable during my high school experience, and I hope to instill it in those that may be as devastated and confused now as I was four years ago.

 

How will you measure your success?

I have three main goals with this project. You can read more about them in this post, but here they are in brief:

  1. To identify elements of American politics that are most relevant to the current discourse. What do young people need to know to understand what’s going on right now?
  2. To provide middle school students with tools and knowledge for them to be able to discuss politics in a more nuanced way
  3. To improve my ability to communicate complex information to an audience that does not know as much about it as I do

I will when I have growth with regards to these goals if I ever have to re-design one of my previously-made lesson plans. I know that the things that I want to teach are not set in stone right now, and the only way for me to improve how I teach them is to learn alongside the students and adapt to their desires.

 

Resource List 

 

Daily Plan & Schedule

Note from my Proposal Pitch: developing lesson plans “will include researching specific topics that I (and students) find particularly interesting; finding engaging articles, videos, or podcasts to showcase; and devising fun activities to stimulate thoughtful discussion.” 

X-Block Note: I would like to continue with my Games Club X-Block (Tuesdays, 3:05-3:45) and Jazz Ensemble (Wednesdays, 12:00-1:00). If there is a time conflict, my Senior Project will take precedence.

I plan to spend some time during Spring Break doing some preliminary work (mostly research). Please refer to my Learning Goals post for more.

Now, on with my plan:

  • Week 1 (April 11th – April 17th): 
    • Depending on how far I got into my preliminary work from weeks before, there may be some research items for me to wrap up, finalizing communications regarding the course itself and finishing the “I-Search” process (the skeleton and Conrad’s book)
    • Begin/continue developing lesson plans for the upcoming weeks.
  • Week 2 (April 18th – April 24th): 
    • Depending on teachers’ availability, I would like to spend this week (or even the week before) observing middle school humanities classes. I would like to begin teaching the actual course in a week.
    • After each observation, I will record a journal entry/blog post detailing what I notice about the class and which teaching methods work best.
    • Continue developing lesson plans for the upcoming weeks.
  • Week 3 (April 25th – May 1): 
    • Again, depending on teachers’ and students’ availability, I would like to begin teaching this week (or even the week before). I hope to begin around 1-2 sessions a week.
    • After the first session or two, I will send a Google Form to the students to gauge their interests in certain topics and presentation tools.
    • Continue developing lesson plans for the upcoming weeks, taking into account students’ responses to my survey.
  • Week 4 (May 2nd – May 8th): 
    • At this point, I will hopefully be settled into some sort of groove in terms of planning lessons. This can be a sort of re-calibration point. I should adjust my future plans to fit the expectations from previous weeks’ classes, and I should evaluate whether it would be possible to increase the number of lessons (though this may be a long shot, I am not ruling it out entirely).
    • Continue developing lesson plans for the upcoming weeks.
    • I think it would be fun to end the course on a high note, so perhaps I could begin developing a final project/activity. Some of my favorite finals have been debates, so maybe this would be an idea to consider. However, I will defer to the students’ desires as to what a final project might look like if I plan one at all
  • Week 5 (May 9th – May 15th): 
    • If the final project plan went through, continue developing it. Search for articles, videos, and other resources that will help students formulate arguments for each side. Create a timeline for the debate (when + how long each side presents for). Perhaps create templates that can help students structure their arguments more effectively.
    • Continue developing lesson plans for the upcoming week.
  • Week 6 (May 16th – May 23rd): 
    • After my final session, I will send out another Google Form asking students to reflect on their experience with my course. I always like Preethi’s end-of-the-trimester reflections, which combined “on a scale of 1-10” questions and short written responses. I will create something along those lines so I can more deeply measure students’ takeaways.

 

Documentation Plan

I will document my project in multiple ways. Here are the ideas that I currently have:

  • Beyond being my go-to guide for each of my sessions, my lesson plans will also document the project. I have written multiple times about wanting to incorporate students’ interests into my lessons. As such, the lesson plans will each be “living documents” (to appropriate the language of some constitutional scholars) that reflect how my goals and execution change throughout the Senior Project Experience. They will also (hopefully) be resources that teachers can refer to after my project has ended.
  • I plan to keep journal entries reflecting on how each of my lessons goes. Some questions that I will consider when writing them include: “which subjects or tools were most/least engaging?” “Could I have done more to encourage student participation?” “How much of my lesson plan did I get to?” “How much did I deviate from my lesson plan?” These journal entries will not only document my project for Senior Project night, but they will also help me fine-tune my course over time.
  • I will keep a spreadsheet to log my tasks and the number of hours per day.

I will draft the lesson plans and journal entries in Google Docs, but I will publish them on a blog. Blog creation is not my strong suit (and I think I will have plenty to manage without a blog of my own), so the Senior Project blog will suffice.

 

Material Needs

I am not going to need many materials from the school. Because my project mostly involves planning lessons and creating learning materials, it can mostly be done from the comfort of my home. 

The only thing that I could conceivably need from the school would be a room in the 6th Avenue building if I were to teach the live component in person. Such a notion is still up in the air, as I would have to discuss it with Allison or Phil. Regardless, I predict that I will end up leading the course from Zoom, which will not require any school resources.

 

Backup Plan

The number one thing that I can imagine going wrong with my project is not being able to make a connection to teach a live class. Though this would be disappointing, as I think live teaching would be the best way for me to address my essential question, it would not be the end of my project. The project already incorporates asynchronous teaching methods (eg. me creating presentations/guides and maybe even recording a podcast). If my connection were to fall through, I would focus much more on the asynchronous elements. I believe that they would still answer my essential question, and maybe in a more interesting/unconventional way than I had initially considered.

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