Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Politically or Racially-Aware I believe in democracy. As a high school social sciences teacher, I strongly believe in democratic education and political awareness. I want my students to be aware of what is going on around them locally, nationally, and internationally. I require my students to keep up with news. Everything they learn from newspapers, magazines, and television becomes substance to use in my lessons. Before the presidential elections, I asked my students to watch all the debates, try to see the different perspectives, and how those perspectives may lead to different courses of action and to different implications for people. As part of this effort, I gave students a "persuasive writing" assignment. I gave them a list of topics from the debates, such as abortion, healthcare, affirmative action, and foreign policy. Students were to take a position on one of these issues and write a persuasive essay. When it was time for students to share their writings in class, things got out of hand. Every single topic we discussed along with the essays turned into a discussion of race. My Black and White students took opposite perspectives on every issue and during the discussions, they were not civil. I felt like my efforts for democratic education were not producing anything good. Should I change my activities? How come the political awareness I wanted develop in my students actually turned out to be racial awareness? Some guidance please! Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) Your intentions were good, and I think this is definitely an activity you can use in the future as long as your structure it a little differently. Before assigning the writing assignment, have a lesson that gives them some background knowledge into debates. Explain how the presidential debates are structured, what issues will be talked about, and the rules the participants are required to follow. Stress that one of these rules is being respectful of someone else's opinions instead of responding in insulting ways. Explain that this is expected in any arena where debate occurs, including your classroom. Maybe have the students brainstorm a list of rules they would have for a debate, because ownership makes rules more valuable for students. Since their assignment is a persuasive (or argument) writing, one of the requirements should be that they acknowledge not only their claim, but the counterclaim, or the opposite side. What's good about having them acknowledge the counterclaim is that they have to put themselves in the opposition's shoes and think about what evidence they would use to support their side. By the time they get to share their writing in class, they are already prepared to see their issue from another perspective. As far as your current class and their racial arguments, perhaps have them research whites that have fought for black issues and blacks that have fought for white issues. Show them that there are people of every race and culture on both sides of our bipartisan democracy and that it is important to be aware of this.