Students at Pulaski making a difference

Teen activism was the central topic of a nonfiction unit recently completed and celebrated by sixth grade students and their teachers at the Pulaski Street School. Teen activism is alive and well at Pulaski. There have been several fundraising and community service efforts at Pulaski this year that have grown out of students’ studies. Most recently, the Pulaski band students, inspired by the book “Wonder”(a book about a child with a facial deformity), raised $1,750 by selling Gratitude Rocks. This money was donated to the SmileTrain Project, which works globally to perform cleft palate surgeries free of charge for children. The recently completed nonfiction unit fueled even more teen activism, and who knows what effect their studies will have on these students in the future.

In this nonfiction unit on informational writing and teen activism, students study several teen activists with causes all around the world. Some of the activists and topics include: Malala Yousafsai and “Education for Girls”, Iqbal Masih/Craig Keilberger and “Child Labor”, Faye Carey and “Animal Abandonment”, Emily-Anne Rigal and “Anti-Bullying”, and Alex Lin and Clay McMullen on “Environmental Protection”. The students read books, research their topic in the library and on the Internet and use their research to write papers and create digital presentations.

“My hope for the Teen Activism unit was that it would grab my students’ attention and help them discover that they, too, can play an active role in their community and in society,” writes 6th grade teacher Tracy Martin about this nonfiction unit. “One of the young activists my students researched, Malala Yousafzai, who was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, said, ‘One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world,’ continued Ms. Martin. “The future belongs to our students and, through action inspired and informed by their reading, research and writing, I want them to realize they can create opportunities to use their awareness to solve real world problems. I want them to know that their work during this time in school has significance beyond the classroom and beyond the school year.”

The teachers of the sixth grade classes brought their classes together as part of a concluding celebration. In a systematic way, the students read work created by another sixth grader at Pulaski and critiqued the writing using the TCRWP writing checklist. After reading and evaluating what they had read, the students were challenged to write a tweet about some aspect of the work.

Here are some of the students’ (unpublished) Tweets from the celebration:

1. #craft , chapter 2 was well crafted! You chose your words carefully so they would have an effect on your reader and explained your evidence!
2. #Elaboration, How you included a variety of facts, quotations, images, they raised questions for me about how life can be terrible at times, and we need to have a voice
3. #LEAD hooked me in right away using explanations and stories,
4. #CRAFT you really kept me engaged, with all your details and text features. They just kept drawing me in and motivating me to stand up for animal rights!! Your fundraising is an inspiration, SIGN ME UP…

The last tweet may have been written about one of the works of a group of girls. These girls were super inspired by their reading and research on animal cruelty and abandonment. They decided not to just ‘talk the talk, but to walk the walk’. Their research inspired them to form an animal rights group and they began collecting blankets, animal treats and toys and other items to donate to the Kent Animal Shelter.

One student in this group, Madison Stromski, shared, “I purchased and brought in special flavored doggie treats to give to the dogs.” The teen activism unit has a special relevance to Pulaski Street teachers. Last year, working with Pulaski Street School Literacy Coach Amy Brennan, sixth grade teacher Christopher Gatz taught a nonfictional unit on reading, research and writing, which centered on the topic of Teen Activism the expectation that some of his students’ work was to be included in a book Pulaski’s Columbia Teachers College Reading/Writing Program (TCRWP) consultant, Maggie Beattie Roberts, was writing. This book was viewed by students around the world. The excitement of that event came full circle recently as the sixth grade students at the Pulaski Street School celebrated together the completion of their work based on Maggie Beattie Roberts’ book, which used examples of work from students who are now 7th graders in Riverhead.

Source: Riverhead Central School District press release dated March 25, 2015.