CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Classroom Conversations with Councilman Cohen
Conversation-Based Advocacy: Students demonstrate the ability to speak/write/think about real-world problems.
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Conversation-Based Advocacy
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Teacher Initiation of Conversation-Based Advocacy
Text Supports for Student Advocacy Analysis
Student Close Reading Responses
Letters to Councilman Cohen and Superintendent Santelises
Introduction
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When students and teachers returned from Winter Break on January 3rd, they were met with classrooms below the regulated degrees limit and several with severe snow flooding. While 85 out of 190 schools experienced freezing and building infrastructure issues, schools remained opened and teachers and students were asked to focus on instruction. However, as teachers, students, and families began to share their experiences on social media and news outlets, the City Schools were shut down for the remainder of the week and around-the-clock emergency maintenance was funded through Governor O'Malley. With a school building with water pipes and heating infrastructure from the early 1960s, my school's building is an exemplar case of the impact poorly maintained school buildings can have on student learning. Prior to the national attention, my school had to dismiss students early due to no heating and gas leaks at least twice before January. As more community members and political constituents learned about specific conditions across City Schools buildings, many began to make a concerted effort to listen to the voices of students and staff that experience these conditions daily.
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As a member of the Instructional Leadership Team, it is often my responsibility to introduce innovative instruction or whole-school interests in my classroom. When it was announced that City Councilman Zeke Cohen chose to hold January's Education and Youth Committee Community Meeting at my school, I was asked to gather anecdotes from students to present to the meeting. While I expected this experience to strengthen the conversation-based advocacy of my students, by simply exposing them to writing and thinking about local current events, I did not anticipate the impact it would have on how my student develop their political voices and peak student interests. By the end of this experience, my students utilized academic instruction to analyze political positions, construct a narrative letter, and gain the personal attention of Councilman Cohen to address the systemic conditions students experiences. Once Councilman Cohen visited my classroom, it was evident that students were moving beyond conversations to consider how their actions can impact the future. Through this conversation-based advocacy, students experienced action and were ignited to consider the capacities and roles that can assume as politicized members of school and community as well.
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Teacher Initiation of Conversation-Based Advocacy
Over the course of a month and a half, my students were introduced to Councilman Zeke Cohen through a public community meeting, an analysis of his work as Education and Youth Committee chair, and reflections from the class visit. The PowerPoint above highlights my planning and instructional support I provided students throughout this time. As Slide 1 highlights, students were introduced to Councilman Cohen in connection to his visit to the school building. Here, I provided students with a quick overview of the councilman's district and the purpose of his visit. As the red box indicates on the first slide, the learning objective for students was to engage in a self-selected close reading to ground their experiences and opinions, in a wider conversation about City Schools' building infrastructure. As a component of my weekly routines, I utilized the restorative circles space that week to engage students in expressing how their lived experience is often left from conversations, but can be strengthened in classroom discourse. My initiation of conversation served to provide my students with a safe space for open dialogue and inquiry that will lead them to draw connections between their personal experiences and the knowledge learned along this project.
Text Supports for Student Advocacy Analysis ​
As a former youth organizer, I often facilitate instruction through a democratic voice-driven lens, anchoring learning experiences on the collective knowledge of those in the classroom community. For the interest of this advocacy project, the collective community is beyond the students in my classroom, but rather those students and families who have experiences similar school-based issues regarded building infrastructure and lack of heating. Thus, to build an awareness of this collective impact and energy, I anchored student reflections in an academic reading and analysis of two local news articles. Anchored in Common Core State Standards (R.I.8 - Cite text evidence; R.I.3 - Make connections) and the district's Cycle of Professional Learning Target 1 and 2: close reading and academic discourse, I present a one-day lesson to invest and engage students in real-world problems and evidence-based analysis.
The student sample to the left represents one of the two articles student could self-select to annotate to support their close reading and letter writing assignment in class. While annotations were not required, some students benefit from engaging in written discourse as a strategy to active prior knowledge and anchor their questions and responses in a wider conversation. The red box indicates this students' annotated thoughts. As she writes, "I would get her work from the school," the student conveys a real-world solution to this reoccurring issue of students feeling unsafe in unheated schools and the school systems delay in solving the issue. While this student's annotations draw upon text-to-self connections, I wanted to utilize the close reading sheet to build a more rigorous and critical response to the content.
The student sample to the right represents the other article I offered as a self-selected choice for students who wanted to annotate prior to engaging in the close reading responses and letters to stakeholders. This student's annotations represent a higher level of thinking and writing than the student sample above through posing questions, drawing connections across class conversations, and building upon personal knowledge. The red box indicates a few of these student's most exemplar annotation responses, as he integrates both formal and informal language frames to express an analysis of the article's points. While the student responds, "watever" to the blaming of local leaders for City Schools conditions, he also draws upon the research and discussion held in class about the specificities of funding. When the student references what I stated in class, he demonstrates how he is thinking about the role of funding as an equitable resource to impact the current community conditions. While this student's comments may seem pessimistic, they illustrate his high engagement with an optional annotation to synthesize his thinking.
Student Close Reading Responses
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To further students' ability to think, speak, write critically about the injustices of their personal lived experiences, I facilitated a more rigorous guided close reading of the articles annotated above prior to students drafting their letters. Additionally, to capture the engagement of my seventh grade students, they analyzed Councilman Cohen's posts on his public and political social media accounts. Through differentiated interests, I was able to facilitate a quality learning experience and cultivate the advocacy voices of my students.
The document above is a snapshot of my slideshow presented to students to utilize during their close reading of the social media posts to the right. To engage my seventh grade students in thinking and writing about the Councilman's interests, I gathered screenshots from a few of his public social media pages. As the red boxes indicate, each close read prompts students to build upon their knowledge as it relates to not only the main idea but also its larger purpose in conversation with current events and real-world issues.
Although I provided questions for each Close Read, they were intentionally open-ended to provide students with a writing assignment that would challenge them to not only draw connections, but increase their self-advocacy by considering how district-level politics affects their daily lives. From low to middle to high engagement, the student samples above highlight how students integrate instructional resources I have provided to think and write about real-world problems as they prepare to speak to Councilman Cohen.
Letters to Councilman Cohen and Superintendent Santelises ​
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Following the close reading peer discussions, students wrote personal letters to Councilman Cohen and the district's CEO regarding the overarching and specific issues that affect them.
As shown above, these are the final drafts of the letters submitted to Councilman Cohen where students utilized the conversations held in class to express their sentiments, recommendations, and needs of improvement to our school building.
Conversation-Based Advocacy
The clip above is my testimonial presented at the City Council's Education and Youth Committee Community Meeting that was held at my school the same day students wrote their letters to Councilman Cohen. Seated in the middle of the three men on stage, Councilman Cohen listens as I explain multiple points my students reference in their letters. While some were present to read their letters aloud, this clip is over an hour and a half into the community meeting that started at 6 PM. Therefore, as I note in my presentation, many of my students had to leave the meeting and did not have a chance to read present their letters to City Council themselves. Around the 2:00 minute mark of the video, I not only present Councilman Cohen with the students' letters but I also request that he join a conversation in my classroom to answer student questions directly. The next day I informed students that they would be have a discussion with Councilman Cohen by playing this clip so that they are aware of how the rest of the meeting went.
Councilman Cohen's Classroom Visit ​
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The images below represent the 90-minute conversation Councilman Cohen held with students in my classroom. As shown in the background of many photos, behind Councilman Cohen are the 30+ questions students wanted addressed. Click on each image to explore what was discussed with students during the class visit:
 Conversation with Councilman CohenCouncilman Cohen discussing the cost-benefit analysis of student transportation passes. |  Conversation with Councilman CohenAs one student asked, "If everyone knows it will cost $3 million to fix all HVAC systems in schools, why would Gov. Hogan only give $2.5 million in emergency funds?" |  Conversation with Councilman CohenCouncilman Cohen listing Gov. Hogan's top strategies of publicity in regard to City Schools' national attention. |
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 Conversation with Councilman Cohen7th and 8th grade honors students gathered in my classroom for a 1-hr intimate discussion on their most pressing concerns and questions. |  Conversation with Councilman CohenOver 40 students gathered in my room to hear from Councilman Cohen. Here, many students are completing their Reflection Sheet as the Councilman offers insight on the city's education funding |  Conversation with Councilman CohenIn preparation for Councilman Cohen's visit, I recorded a neat and concise list of all student questions. |
 Conversation with Councilman CohenAnother 7th grade teacher, Mr. White joins our shared 7th grade honors class. He supported students in his technology class on research-based questioning for Councilman Cohen. |  Conversation with Councilman CohenThe Councilman asks students, "What do you think the Governor did in response to City Council's education bake sale?" In the recording below, you hear my student think critically and hypothesize possible responses. |
The voice thread above represents a sample of the conversation students held with Councilman Cohen. As a representation of my students' ability to both think and speak effectively, the clip highlights the reciprocal dialogue between them and the Councilman. Many of my students were not afraid to express their opinion and actively answer Mr. Cohen's questions. As he probed students to think critically about the Governor's interests, they were able to apply these critical thinking skills in a real-world situation. As heard during the first minute's dialogue, as students get closer and closer to the Governor's real-life response to the city's budget crisis, students become more engaged in thinking through their response to Councilman Cohen.
Click on each of the images above to explore what was discussed with students during the class visit
Post-Visit Student and Teacher Reflections ​
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During the visit or immediately after, students recorded their thoughts and insights gained from the discussion with Councilman Cohen. For many of the students, this was their first time speaking directly with a City Council representative. Their reflection highlight not only the engagement of their thinking and writing through this entire process, but also the impact this conversation-based advocacy has had on their college and career goals.
The student work above is sample evidence of student reflections during and after the Councilman's class visit. To demonstrate follow through in my students' ability to think, write, and speak about advocacy-based real-world problems, this reflection sheet prompted students to consider their main takeaways from the conversation as well as analyze how it applies to them. Each sample above highlights a reflection my diverse range of students. While not all students want a career in public service, through their thinking, speaking, and listening, they have a better understanding of the role of City Council and the wide range of opportunities and service they are expected to provide and advocate for their community.
A few hours following the classroom visit, Councilman Cohen sends this text to the technology teacher who supported my 7th grade students with online research about City Council. While his reflection is not extensive, I was able to show it to my students to praise them for their diligence and engagement throughout this conversation-based advocacy experience. His words offer evidence to the collective assets my students provide as they engaged in dialogue, posed their questions, and grounded this opportunity in their personal goals and growth.
For many of my students, the energy cultivated through thinking, speaking, and writing about the real-world impact of issues that affect their daily lives, facilitated their inspiration and motivation to move from conversation to action advocacy. While I planned a different action project for students, it was just days after the Councilman's visit when they facilitated their own discussion about the inclement weather school closing policies as it related to past conversations in my classroom.