Key Learning Goals

1. 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?
   • During Spring Break, I want to start developing a general skeleton of the content I would like to cover. I have already written about my interest in covering checks and balances, the Supreme Court, and the role of the United States on the world stage. But I need to get specific – which moments in the history of American politics should I draw on to introduce the topic? How will I relate them to current events? I think I will have a clearer picture of these questions when I develop the skeleton.
   • If I can spend several classes observing middle school humanities classes, I will take note of which areas the students are particularly engaged in. Furthermore, I would like to either send out Google surveys or schedule interviews with students to further gauge their interests. I understand that it may be difficult for some to care about learning politics during this moment in history, but tailoring the course around students’ curiosities may help get them more invested.
2. Provide middle school students with tools and knowledge for them to be able to discuss politics in a more nuanced way
   • During my research and development period, I will be sure to locate sources from a variety of political perspectives. Speaking from experience, I think it can be really easy for middle school students to fall into an ideological bubble when it comes to politics. I know this will be difficult, but I at least want students to become somewhat more aware of the biases in U.S. politics (as well as their own). This is not to say that I don’t want students to have their own views, but I think it’s important that they be able to distinguish between fact and opinion.
   • I’ve learned through my Constitutional Law and International Diplomacy classes that discussing politics is just as much a skill as anything else taught in school. The main way to get better at it is through practice and repetition. This is why I want discussion between the students to be the cornerstone of my course (plus, it would not be exciting for anyone if I were to just lecture students for 45 minutes at a time).
3. Improve my ability to communicate complex information to an audience that does not know as much about it as I do
   • As I have learned during three trimesters of online learning, websites and online tools are key to retaining students’ attention during class (see the final item on my action plan for resources that I find engaging). When I correspond with teachers at the LREI middle school, I will ask them which tools work well in their classes. Doing so will hopefully give me some inspiration as I plan out how to present my course. Again, I want the course to revolve around students’ interests, and this includes the presentation in addition to the content.
   • When I am developing my lesson plans, I will need to frequently ask myself “how much detail is too much?” I’ve been in plenty of classes that are so in-depth that all the information, even the most fundamental aspects, goes over my head. I want to avoid this, especially with something so timely as American politics. Not only am I not qualified to dive into every conceivable detail, I know that getting too deep into the weeds could leave students more confused than when they entered the course.

General Work Plan

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.

Now, on with my plan (which is not as specific now as it will be in April, as I have yet to have the experience of planning a lesson):

• Spring Break and the first week back (March 20th – April 10th): Since there is a lot to plan for my project, I want to get started on some general preliminaries. I don’t expect this to count towards my 30 hours/week requirement. I am only listing this because I don’t think I would be in a very good place if I did not begin the Senior Project experience without accomplishing these things (many of which I included in my action plan post, which goes much more in-depth).
  • Sending an email to middle teachers to ask if they would like to sponsor my project, as well as follow-up emails to coordinate materials, observation times, and other specifics
  • Engaging in the “I-Search” process: 
    • Developing the aforementioned skeleton by beginning to compile resources (for content and presentation) to put in my lesson plans. 
    • Beginning to read What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don’t by Jessamyn Conrad
• 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.