Why Does This Even Matter:  Connecting Non-fiction Reading to Current Issues
By:  Jill Conrad

Project at a Glance :

Sophomore students in their required trimester long Literature/Reading course will discover current issues/events that connect their nonfiction book club title to make connections to the real world around them and to themselves. They will share those connections with other students and gather their peers’ opinions and reactions, processing that peer feedback to determine claims/themes that their books convey which are supported by the world around them. At the end, they will use writing to reach out to organizations that deal with that current issue, sharing generalizations and connections they have made and possibly making further inquiries. The project focuses on a variety of  English standards including reading, writing, and speaking standards. This unit is roughly 4 weeks.  
 
Driving Question:

How does what I read connect to my life or the real world around me?         

Standards:

• Identifying motifs, key concepts, and main ideas. 
• Finding supporting details/evidence. 
• Finding credible news research.
• Citing sources.
• CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) writing structure, culminating in the generalization and conclusion writing.

Team / Culture Building:

• Book clubs will be determined by interest and ranking of top choices and least favorites.

Entry Event:

• First a brainstorm of common human struggles in this world… what do humans struggle with?
• Share lists and compare to and add to a master list.
• Then, as a group, do a scavenger hunt of current events and issues on designated websites to find stories that deal with a myriad of human struggles?
• Type headline to story and put in a link on a chart.

Stakeholders:

• People currently dealing with issues that relate to their book, or people who have dealt with it.  

Empathy Building:

• Have them create a visual/empathy map of the main person or type of person their book deals with. 

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Sticky note annotation in their books of many varieties, but definitely of connections – Where are the spots in the book that they really connect to personally or where they see connections to the world around them? What are they reminded of? Share those on a group discussion day.
• Using the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals article in the Investigation Stage as students work to connect their group’s book club book to a current issue or problem. Goal will vary by book based on book content. → https://sdgs.un.org/goals​
• Students found quotes from te mentor text, Night, and the Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech of author Elie Wiesel. These were some they felt were inspiring and relevant to their lives or their world. This continued them exploring the DQ even before getting into their book club titles.
  

Incubation:

• Speedboat Protocol: What ANCHORS are keeping people in the book from achieving what they want? Wnd what could they HOOK into that's available to help them? ​

• Have students generate a list in their groups of topics/issues/problems their book is exploring so far. These should be single words or brief phrases (like poverty, identity).
• In order to decide the direction their book clubs would take for their presentation, each member had to present their research to the team in a sort of elevator pitch, using the provided hub document. Then the team voted and discussed to decide where their interests and best potential was going forward.

Checking in:

•  Check in to see that they are finding some of these kinds of issues in their books (chat GTP-generated list)
• A team document or slideshow that will take them through the steps along the course of the project. this will allow them to keep all their ideas in one place and will be a reference point for them as they go forward to creating the two products (Current event/issue connection visual & Writing as a service).

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Solution Building:

• Students prepared to present to other adults on staff and one other book club who expressed interest in hearing from them about their books and their connections to their world.​

Critique and Revision: 

• Before students finalized their slideshows and presentation technique, the teacher provided feedback. ​

Authentic Audience:

• Book Club Students
• Staff Members

Final Presentation:

• ​Sample of final presentation​

Student's Reflection:

     "It was better than presenting in front of our whole class." ~ Tyler
​
     "We should keep presenting like that because it was less pressure but also I knew the people we were presenting to would care." ~ Nora

Click here for teacher's full plan.

Feedback:

• Audience members completed a feedback form for each group.​

​​Audience Member's Reflection:
​
     "I could tell the kids really enjoyed their book... and the article they connected it to regarding trauma and brain development was so interesting." ~ Business Teacher

     "It was cool to see some of these students I knew just from math class talk about a book from their English class and what connections they were making with that." ~ Math teacher

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
​
Jill Conrad teaches English at Hudsonville High School.

     "I like using PBL/Design Thinking because it helps ME create MORE opportunities for THEM . . . MORE ways for THEM to explore what they read . . .  and MORE ways for them to create and share.”