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An Inquiry-Driven Unit on Social Action
In this chapter, we’ll look at the first of the three inquiry-based units described in this section of the book. As explained in the book’s introduction, these three units represent different ways that inquiry-driven instruction can look in the English classroom. The unit described here, which Sean taught to an eighth-grade English class, focused on the essential question “What inspires individuals to take part in social action?” Its central text was the novel The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya; in addition to this novel, the unit also asked students to consider a range of songs, poems, visual art, and nonfiction articles.
We’ll examine that unit by considering several of its components and attributes. First, we’ll unpack the unit’s essential question, its significance, and how the question facilitated the use of a range of texts. After that, we’ll look closely at the unit’s text set, including key features of each of the pieces students analyzed for the unit and how each aligns with the essential question. Next, we’ll examine the rationale that Sean shared with administrators, students, and families before teaching the unit to an eighth-grade class. Following that, we’ll check out the assessment Sean implemented with his eighth-graders at the completion of this unit. Then, we’ll see outlines of the daily lesson plans used in the unit. Finally, we’ll consider key takeaway ideas that you can connect to your own instruction.
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate one approach that an inquiry-oriented unit can take; as you’ll see throughout the chapter, the unit described here utilizes a contemporary young-adult novel and a wide range of other texts from a variety of genres and time periods to help students think about and ultimately respond to the unit’s essential question. As you examine this example unit, we encourage you to think about how you might construct similarly structured inquiry-oriented units with your students. While you can certainly teach this unit to your students in its current form, we also suggest that, as you read the details of this unit, you think about one or more key essential questions that might especially engage your students. After you’ve identified that question or those questions, we recommend identifying a central novel that you believe would engage and challenge your students while helping them reflect on the essential question or questions. Once you’ve thought about this novel, you can begin to think of additional texts that can work in concert with the novel to help your students consider the essential question(s) in nuanced and informed ways. Let’s get started by looking at the essential question Sean selected for this unit and the thought process associated with it.
Essential Question
The essential question that guided this unit was “What inspires individuals to take part in social action?” Sean selected this question for a variety of reasons. First, the question was of high interest to the students to whom the unit was taught. Many students in this class were concerned with social issues, having attended a number of protests, rallies, and demonstrations in Virginia (where the unit was taught) and in Washington, DC. Since the students often raised questions and shared insights in class about social action, Sean wanted to capitalize on their interests.
In addition, the unit’s broad scope facilitated the use of a number of texts, which allowed students to consider an important issue from a wide range of perspectives. The varying perspectives and insights provided by the range of texts in this unit helped students develop nuanced responses to the unit’s essential question. When he introduced the essential question at the beginning of the unit, Sean explained to the students the importance of using a variety of texts to help them respond to the question. “Our essential question, ‘What inspires individuals to take part in social action?’ is a broad one,” he told them, “and it has a lot of different components and possible explanations. Because of this, we’re going to look at a really wide range of texts to help us understand the question and create thoughtful, well-informed responses to it.”
The fact that the unit’s essential question lent itself to a wide range of texts also helped Sean align the unit with key instructional standards. The Virginia Standards of Learning for eighth grade call for students to “read and analyze a variety of fictional texts, literary nonfiction, poetry, and drama” (VA SOL 8.5) and “read, comprehend, and analyze a variety of nonfiction texts” (VA SOL 8.6). In addition, the Common Core State Standards explain that students “should read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts” (2010). The wide-ranging focus and correspondingly broad essential question of this unit facilitated students’ interactions with the variety of texts addressed in these standards.
As you craft inquiry-based units like this one to use with your students, we encourage you to reflect on the standards in your state and how they align with this type of unit. We’ve found that many current and rigorous state standards encourage the kinds of in-depth analysis facilitated by inquiry-based units. For example, the Colorado Academic Standards for eighth-grade reading, writing, and communication specifically cite inquiry as a component of effective instruction and call for students to read and interpret texts from a wide range of genres (Colorado Department of Education, 2020). While details of specific state standards vary, the analytical work students do in inquiry-based learning will help them succeed in a wide range of academic and real-world situations, as the skills associated with reflecting on an essential question and interpreting a variety of sources can be widely applied. Now that we’ve considered the strengths of this unit’s essential questions and the way these questions align with a variety of texts, skills, and standards, let’s check out the texts featured in the unit.
Text Set
In this unit, students engaged with texts representative of a range of genres, perspectives, and experiences. While all of these works connected with the essential question—“What inspires individuals to take part in social action?”—they provided students with a number of ways of engaging with the key ideas embedded in the unit’s focus. In this section, we’ll look at the texts used in this unit, important features of each one, and how each work aligns with the unit’s essential question. As the descriptions here indicate, the unit’s text set contains a number of genres, such as a novel, songs (or song excerpts), poetry, artwork, and nonfiction articles.
Novel
- The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya. This novel describes 13-year-old Arturo’s experience trying to save his family’s restaurant from a land developer and his sources of inspiration, such as letters written by his deceased grandfather and the works of Cuban revolutionary poet José Martí. It represented the central text for the unit—students read it throughout the unit and used it as an initial point-of-reference regarding the essential question. The social activism in this text is both specific and generalizable: although the particular actions in which Arturo engages are local to a certain situation and context, many aspects of them can be connected to other examples of social action.
Songs (or Song Excerpts)
- “My Shot” from the musical Hamilton. This song, which features multiple characters in Hamilton discussing their desires to fight for America’s independence, provided an excellent entry point for students as they began to consider similarities and differences in the reasons individuals engage in social action.
- “The General” by Dispatch. This song describes a military general’s changing perspective on war. Before a significant battle, he explains that he has thought about the members of the opposition as individuals and encourages his troops to choose not to participate in the battle. This text provided students with an example of social action in which a character adopts a new perspective.
- “Keep Ya Head Up” by 2Pac. In this song, 2Pac calls for men to be respectful of women and discusses how disrespectful behavior towards women has a negative impact on society in a variety of ways. While discussing this important issue, 2Pac also comments on other issues of inequality. This text was very well-received by the students—they appreciated 2Pac’s social consciousness and his advocacy-oriented perspective. Students made a variety of connections to this song throughout the unit.
- “Hero” by Nas. In this song, Nas discusses his experiences challenging social norms and being an inspiring role model for others who are trying to achieve their dreams. He addresses problems with corporate greed and explains how he views his music and status as vehicles for making a difference in the world. Students made very insightful connections between the ideas in this song and the protagonist of The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora.
Poetry
- “I Have A White Rose to Tend” by José Martí. This poem, which is included in the book The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora and plays a role in Arturo’s coming-of-age process, addresses the idea of being consistently compassionate and kind towards all. The students thoughtfully considered how the commitment toward kindness and compassion discussed in this poem related to the unit’s essential question, reflecting on how one’s social action is often inspired by that individual’s focus on all people being treated fairly.
- “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. This poem’s message of hopefulness and persistence in the face of oppression can facilitate important connections to the topic of why individuals take part in social action. The students discussed how the poem’s speaker responds to discrimination and mistreatment with confidence and resilience; they compared this speaker’s mentality with other examples they examined throughout the unit.
- “Wage Peace” by Judyth Hill. This poem provides an excellent action of a text that can inspire social action. The piece carefully contrasts desolate and hopeful images and calls for the reader to work for and celebrate peace and beauty. The students found this to be an especially powerful text when reflecting on what the goals of social action can look like.
Artwork
- Rage, Flower Thrower by Banksy. The piece depicts a black and white drawing of a man with a covered face and backwards hat who is positioned to throw an object; his body language suggests he is prepared to use a great deal of force in his throw. The item to be thrown is a bouquet of flowers—the only component of the image in color. This powerful image provides a great visual representation of the impact of social action.
- Face 2 Face Project by JR and Marco. In this piece, the artists photographed Israelis and Palestinians making silly and smiling faces and placed the photos in Israeli and Palestinian cities, conveying the message that all individuals share the same human emotions. This artwork led to interesting conversations among the students because the art itself was an example of a social action meant to promote empathy.
- For Some, It’s Mt. Everest by the American Disabilities Association. This piece is a photograph of Mt. Everest placed on a set of public stairs by the American Disabilities Association. On one stair is the text “For some, it’s Mt. Everest.” The stair underneath that one contains the text “Help build more handicap facilities.” Directly underneath is another stair that contains the name and logo of the American Disabilities Association. Students responded thoughtfully to this piece, describing how it can provide important motivation for social action.
Nonfiction Articles
- “7 Times in History When Students Turned to Activism” by ...
