Engaging in Learning

Video One: Does the PATRIOT Act violate our civil liberties? 

Eleventh grade historians analyzing the Bill of Rights along side the PATRIOT Act to determine if there are any aspects of the PATRIOT Act that violate or restrict the civil liberties of the American people. 

Video Clip One

The video clip one is from the first lesson of the teaching sequence. This clip shows students interacting with the Bill of Rights while also comparing the amendments to the PATRIOT Act.  It was very important for students to understand how to use the Bill of Rights as a guide in examining federal laws and regulations because this was what they had to do at the end of the learning segment in the mock trial. As the teacher I was attempting to show students how to compare the Bill of Rights to pieces of legislation in order to decide if that legislation was constitutional or not.  In earlier lessons students had looked at hypothetical situations along side the Bill of Rights in order to find which amendment was being violated in the situation.  This lesson was a continuation of those earlier lessons with one exception being that the students were working more independently without a lot of modeling form the teacher.

Video Clips Two, Three, and Four: Civil Liberties Mock Trial 

Engaging Students in Learning

In order for students to be invested in their schoolwork they must be intellectually engaged throughout the lesson.  If students do not understand what they are reading they are far more likely to become unengaged and lack ownership in their work.  In this learning segment students are encouraged to interact with the text to keep them engaged with the content, create a deeper meaning of what they are reading, and form good notes to look back on and use later in the unit. The study of history allows for deep engagement from students when what they are studying relates directly to their lives. When this engagement happens skills can be mastered that are not only important for the study of history but are transferable to all other aspects of a successful life.  According to Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, authors of Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension and for Understanding and Engagement, it is extremely important and necessary for students to interact with text in a way that allows transferable skills and strategies. “More recent studies have described the effectiveness of transitional strategy instruction.  Rather than single strategy focus, transitional strategy instruction teaches students a repertoire of strategies that they apply flexibility according to the demands of the reading tasks they encounter” (Goudvis and Harvey 2002).  Throughout this learning segment students are being shown how to annotate certain texts in a way that will be useful during the whole unit.  This was very important for this unit of civil liberties because there was a culminating project at the end where all of these skills needed to be transferred into a real life simulation.  Being able to go back to previous documents and reading the annotations proved to be very helpful for the students in preparing for the final assessment. Goudvis and Harvey explain that we as teachers want our readers to ‘leave tracks of their thinking’ just like animals leave their tracks in the fresh snow.  Successful reading comprehension encourages students to mark and code text with thoughts and questions to “leave tracks’ so they can remember later what they were thinking as they read (2002) I found that students who previously had trouble interacting with the test in this way did better because they were interested and engaged in the subject matter of civil liberties

In the remaining video clip students are proving that the front loading of annotation and coding truly pays off.  Because of the extensive reading and ‘track making’ throughout the unit, students were able to create their arguments for the mock trial because they already had a lot of notes- that they understood- to look back on and use. The students are confident and make good arguments while using a multitude of different resources to attempt to persuade the jury.

Students’ Prior Learning

The students that participated in this learning segment had a very diverse foundation of background knowledge.  When students were asked about the attacks of September 11^th 2001 there was a wide range of answers.  Some students remembered vividly where they were, and how they felt that morning, others barley knew what the attacks were and how they affected the nation and the world.  Although their was a host of different reactions to the discussion about 9/11 all students were familiar with the feeling of fear, and that is how students with limited background knowledge were able to first start examining the reasons behind the government regulation like the PATRIOT Act and the ‘No Fly List’.  The same type of background knowledge was used in the video clip when students were examining the Bill of Rights along side of the PATRIOT Act.  Although many students were not yet familiar with the controversies behind PATRIOT Act, they knew about the Bill of Rights and that those rights were put in place to secure the civil liberties of the American people.  Students used this background information to help them examine the validity of the PATRIOT Act, and then begin to form their own opinions on the subject

This unit on civil liberties during wartime was extremely applicable to the development of social awareness for my students. The nature of a mock trial lends itself to developing social and emotional skills. The students have prior knowledge of working in groups and having class discussions, however a mock trial is both of those put together.  The scaffolding of the trial was based off of student’s prior experiences with working in groups and participating in a class discussion.  The rubric that was used was very much like the rubric that was used for the students in their class discussions.  This helped the students understand the expectations of the mock trial.  Most students were also familiar with court cases that have been played out in movies or television.  This was helpful for students to have this background knowledge when explaining how the court case worked.   

Deepening Student Learning During Instruction

In video clip one students were filmed analyzing the constitutionality of the PARIOT Act.  Students were told to look at the Bill of Rights along side the PATRIOT Act to decide which stanzas of the PATRIOT Act (if any) violated or restricted their civil liberties. Students were then cold called to share out their findings.  However, before they were called on to share out students were allowed to work in groups to answer the question.  While students were working in groups I went around and worked with students that I thought would have the most trouble with this type of thinking.  I found that these specific groups had trouble with pinpointing which stanza of the PATRIOT Act related to which Amendment in the Bill of Rights.  In order to elicit reasonable responses I continued to tell the students to find the evidence in the text.  I would tell them to circle the evidence, or underline the evidence so when they were called on to share out they were ready.  The only way that students were able to construct their own meaning of the text was if they were able to explain why they believed a certain part of the PATRIOT Act was a violation of civil liberties

In video clips of the mock trial (video clips two – four) students were either engaging with each other or with the Bill of Rights. I had for the most part excluded myself from the trial. In video clip three the students are discussing how the ‘No Fly List’ restricts the rights provided by the Fourth Amendment. This comparison was possible because in earlier lessons, such as lesson number one, the students were asked to do this same type of thinking but just with more guided help from me the teacher.  The scaffolded nature of this learning sequence allowed the students to gradually gain more responsibility of their own learning until it was time for the trial. 

Evidence of Academic Language

Throughout all of the video clips students are using the proper academic language needed to have a successful court case.  The students are using the Bill of Rights to either prove or disprove the constitutionality of the ‘No Fly List’.  In video clip three both students are talking about the 4^th Amendment, and explaining what that amendment means to them as American citizens.  In video clip two it is also evident that the students have a good sense of important vocabulary words.  Almost all students have notes in their hand in order to assist them in the trial.  These are notes that students created in the previous class.  I decided that these notes were important for students to have because I did not want to lower my expectations of the trial for certain students who have a hard time remembering content, or for students who are not confident when speaking in front of the class. I think that the vast amount of work that we did understanding the vocabulary and texts allowed for students to use those important words once they were finally on stage.

Not all students were able to use these notes and the scaffolded instruction to the fullest potential, but for the most part students understood that these notes would help them as they presented the evidence to the court.  The members of the jury also did a good job of using important vocabulary words in their questioning of the witnesses.  In video clip four, it is evident that the jury members had a deep understanding if the Bill of Rights and that is due to the notes they had taken in the guided instruction form the earlier lessons. The Bill of Rights was very important because the court case was questioning the constitutionality of the ‘No Fly List’.  Students needed to use those important vocab words in order to get their point across and make their claim.