By Shannon Trimble

As a founding teacher at Rhodes College and Career Academy, I have a lot of leeway for innovation in my social justice class. My colleagues and I get to flex our creative muscles in service of providing interesting and engaging experiences for students.

Recently, I joined an iNACOL webinar to share insights on how I use positive youth development and personalized learning in my class. I talked about how I build trusting relationships as an entry point into identity work, while imbuing relevance, elevating student voice and choice, and inspiring students to reach their fullest potential driven by their own curiosities.

The most exciting part of our class is when we tackle big, relevant issues. Students are excited to research problems and develop informed opinions, which, in turn, let them identify large systemic issues and inequalities that they want to change. I want my students (and all students) to be able to independently craft action steps and plans and get involved in their communities.

Relevance drives engagement
At the beginning of each unit, we explore what we know as a class and what we want to know. I keep a parking lot of questions and topics, which I hope can serve as fodder for future projects! This is a key way that I cultivate students’ passions and personalize their experiences. Sometimes, if enough students are interested in a topic, I will even craft a mini-unit.

Voice and Choice
I give students voice and choice but make sure that their assessments are initially scaffolded. For example, the whole class might start with a standard assessment (e.g., a persuasive essay) on the same topic (e.g., cruel and unusual punishment for minors) grounded in four key questions. The next step is then for students to select an area to explore in depth. They also pick the modality (e.g., paper, speech, video). I start with the standard structure so students get to practice an array of modalities instead of sticking to only those in their comfort zones.

Relationships
Build caring, trusting, and supportive relationships is the foundation of my class, especially since we explore sensitive topics all year long. I use class norms to ensure that students feel safe and know what to expect in our class. Also, I never ask my students to do what I won’t do myself. Before we embark on a project, I’ll pilot it and share it. As a teacher, being vulnerable and open acts as an invitation to students who may not feel confident off the bat. When it comes to sharing their work, students have the option to include their name or not. If I want to share their work in other capacities, I always ask first.

Most importantly, doing this work every day and being in it to win it every day builds valuable relationships. Trust doesn’t happen overnight, nor do relationships. That is why I start with smaller units around personal identity work. We start with a nebulous topic and then work into more specific identity units that cover topics such as race and gender. I have found that students hunger to talk about these issues. Giving them the framework and safe space to do it meets their desire to engage in these conversations and gives them a framework to do so.

High expectations
I am constantly focused on how to maintain rigor in my class. I pull competencies from core class skills and/or habits of success skills. This means rigor but it also means cross-disciplinary collaboration. I work closely with my colleagues to integrate with and build off their work. I even pull in topics from their classes when appropriate. If students are learning how to write persuasive essays in ELA, I bolster those writing and persuasion skills. Or I will look for content-based connections. For example, a recent history class was discussing race and imperialism. In our class, we tied this to race as a social construct and the “white man’s burden.” Creating these kinds of connections anchor these abstract ideas to concrete concepts. I also use similar rubrics and standards, which is another way we align cross-circularly.

Rhodes College and Career Academy is designed to prepare students for life after high school. Developing 21st century skills and knowledge is essential. We want students harness the skills they acquire to develop informed opinions, get involved in their community, and affect change where they see injustice. Exposing students to social justice issues early on, and continuing to deepen that exposure throughout high school, will set our them up for success and empower them to be engaged citizens working for the betterment of their communities and the world.