Teach with Facing History Journal Prompts

[JONATHAN DEE] Today's lesson, they're going to start with a journal where students will be reflecting on either when they felt comfortable or uncomfortable in a classroom setting, preferably, hopefully, in the past couple of years so it's fresh. And students will write, they'll reflect in their journals for a couple of minutes, and then we'll come together. They'll share with a partner who answered the different prompts. We'll have students-- some who felt comfortable, some who didn't feel comfortable-- talking to each other and conversing before we come back together as a big class. Using journals in the class is a great way to get students to think about either what we've just done in class the previous day or the previous week or to get them thinking ahead to what we're about to do. The first thing we're going to do is our journal. So please have your journals open. You don't need the Chromebooks today. You can put those-- stash those away. Here's the way the journal's going to work. So there are two prompts today. If you are sitting on the inside, so the inside two rows, you're going to do the first prompt. I want you to think about-- identify a time when you have felt comfortable sharing your ideas and questions in a class. What happened in those moments to help you feel comfortable? So try to think of something in the past couple of years since you've been in middle school. If you're on the outside, the outside two rows, identify when you've had ideas or questions but have not shared them in class. Why not? Why didn't you feel comfortable? What was happening at those moments? So guys, I'm going to give you a couple of minutes here to respond in your journals. I know it's only our second journal of the year. Keep in mind the date today is the 5th, journal number two. Come up with a title. We have the model on the board you can look at in a second. Title someone earlier today came up with-- just the word "comfort." Keep it simple, something that relates to the prompt. Get to it. You guys finish up that final thought. I'm happy to see a lot of people writing for almost the whole five minutes. I haven't been able to read everything that you've written, but I can see a lot of people seem to have a lot of ideas down. The next step-- the reason that I split up the room-- two different prompts-- is I'm going to have the people on the inside turn and talk to someone behind you. You can talk in the groups of four. You don't have-- before you do it, you don't have to read everything that you wrote. But just please share-- Aiden. I want you to share with them some of your ideas about either why you're comfortable sometimes or uncomfortable, and we'll give you guys a couple of minutes to do that. And then, we'll come back together. So please turn around and talk to someone near you. [STUDENT 1] I usually never am comfortable sharing ideas of mine them because I'm not really a talkative person with people that I'm not friends with. But sometimes, if I'm partnered alone, I actually like to-- I get more comfortable and relaxed and actually let go of myself and say some things that are in my mind. [JONATHAN DEE] Awesome. So what else? Someone who has felt uncomfortable. [STUDENT 2] I feel very uncomfortable when we're doing projects and stuff we have to present in front of the class. But if it's in a small group, then I feel more comfortable. [STUDENT 3] I don't like to share that much because I get nervous a lot. [JONATHAN DEE] What makes you nervous? [STUDENT 3] Just talking in front of a big group of people. Like, I can do it in partners. But I can't do it in, like, big groups. [JONATHAN DEE] Are you afraid of something, of how people might react? [STUDENT 3] No, it's just a weird shyness. [JONATHAN DEE] Shyness? I can relate to that. All right, guys. Come turn back. I got to listen to a couple of the groups. I heard some words came up in a couple of the people that I heard share-- nervous, confused. And those were the people who don't-- who have had those experiences where they weren't comfortable in a class. In our class, we're going to do a lot of different things. You'll be sometimes working alone. Sometimes we'll be all together like this, or we'll be doing some of that small group work. So our goal-- we've talked yesterday and a couple of days now, what makes a reflective classroom? I left some notes up on the board from yesterday. A reflective classroom-- we talked about just that word. What does it mean to reflect, to think back on? And we said it's a thoughtful classroom. It's respectful. There's written work happening. There's class discussion going on, again, small group or whole class. And every class we talked about this. They all talked about different viewpoints, different perspectives being shared in the class. I believe so strongly in using journaling in the classroom. On day one, when I'm going over the different supplies that they need for the class, I always-- the journals, number one on that list. And I talk to my students about when I was in eighth grade or middle school, I always felt like I had a lot to offer. I thought I had a lot of great ideas, but I was really shy. And I know I would sit in the class and I'd hear the teacher say something or another classmate that either I agreed with or I had a different opinion, and it was so hard for me to open up. But I had a teacher who used journals and really encouraged us to be honest. And they were going to be confidential, meaning that other students weren't necessarily going to be able to read through them. And it was a place where you actually could participate in the class, even if you weren't ready just yet to be raising my hand or jumping into big discussions. And it really made me feel comfortable, and it made me feel like my ideas mattered. And I remember it took a couple of months, but eventually, my teacher would comment to me, you have a lot to offer. I can see that, and I really want you to try to share with the students. And I was never forced to do that, but it made me feel comfortable. And that's something I've tried to use in my own classroom now, and I relate that to my students on day one. They think it's weird that all of the sudden, here I am, a teacher in front of eighth graders. I never thought that would be where I would end up 20 years ago, but I talk about the importance of that journal. And I've already seen-- it's just the first week of school, but some students you can actually tell they're quieter than others, that they're already writing in that journal a lot. And so far, some of them aren't feeling comfortable opening up yet. But they're opening up in that journal, and I hope that continues as we get into deeper topics. I try to allow five minutes for the journaling activity. And there was many students who are writing right up until that five minutes, and part of me felt bad calling time. But with that activity, like, that's really-- that's kind of to activate their thoughts.

KEVIN TORO: One thing about using journals in class that I find really useful is, as teenagers, they are so willing to sort of write their thoughts down, organize what they're thinking. And often when we have them speak in class, that there's a little bit of disconnect that happens as they're trying to think and put norms on it and everything that goes along. And with writing, at least from what I've seen and experienced, they seem less limited. They seem almost more willing to talk about harder topics. They get right to it. And it's been something that's really helped me in terms of reflection.

Journals as a tool to get them ready. They are using their sort of own thoughts. They know that it's going to be collected, so it is a bit of work, and there's a bit of tension there. They know that there's going to be outcomes that are going to be assessed. They also feel personal to them in a lot of ways. And they use it constantly throughout class.

For today, what is freedom and what does it mean to be free? You have, let's say five minutes. And then we'll talk a little bit about that freedom. We have this question, what is freedom? And then we have another question. What does it mean to be free? We're talking about a time, remember, where we have a lot of people who have acquired new given citizenship. They are emancipated. They are now citizens in this country. They have full rights.

We know necessarily, from what we've already looked at, that that's not the full truth, but we're going to analyze that to come to our own sort of conclusions about it. If I could take any volunteers for what is freedom and what does it mean to be free. Remember, you could place it in the context. You can also place it out of context. Doralee.

DORALEE: I think freedom is the collection of basic rights and the constitutional rights. It's the ability to express yourself willingly and throughout the government and have a voice in it. And I said that it means everything to a person, because it allows them to be an individual and pursue happiness and live the way they want to live.

KEVIN TORO: Wonderful, yeah. What a great definition of freedom. Gus, I saw you had your hand up.

GUS: Freedom is like the right not to be owned by anyone.

KEVIN TORO: Yeah. Well, especially in the time period we're talking about, that seems so pertinent as an idea. In your own words, describe the freedom given to the former slaves. How does this compare with the definition that you already put from your journal earlier today? What I would like is to take a little bit of time for these. And then hopefully, share. But I'll give you, let's say two, three minutes, and then we'll check in, OK?

If I could ask you to do something last two minutes of class, I just want to get a few answers. How do these compare? And in your own words, what is this freedom? Diego, start us off.

Diego: Education. And I felt like with all the things that I read during the whole session, I feel like that's what I got the most from the readings. To them, like receiving the proper education was most important and like I hadn't thought about that when I wrote my definition. All I thought about was just like being able to go where I please and like freedom of speech and stuff like that. But to them, it was education.

KEVIN TORO: Doralee.

DORALEE: The freed slaves had to work like twice as hard just to like gain their freedom. And I think like nowadays, we take things for granted, like education, the right to just living free or just anything that we want to do. And we have to remember like these people actually had to fight for their freedom. It's not like something that was natural to them. So I think that a lot of people forget where we came from.

KEVIN TORO: Yeah, and the struggle it is, what freedom is in my opinion, is a struggle. Amelia, finish us off.

AMELIA: Um, kind of related to Doralee's, I said like the freedom they're given was also more responsibilities in the world, like their whole community and like society, rather than just in their own personal lives. And like they definitely act upon their freedom a lot more and like don't take it for granted as much.

KEVIN TORO: Absolutely. Opportunities as well. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. Today was great. I use journals in class as a way to allow the students to connect with their inner thoughts, especially in the class around racism. There's a lot of deconstructing of sort of myths and barriers that the students have to do. The journals allow them a safe space to really think, put down their thoughts.

Using it throughout the class period, beginning sort of middle and end, really also allows them a point to check in and breathe, which I really love. And so they get to not only access the information for themselves, reflect, but they just get a chance to actually some little bit of downtime. I think if all of us write journals, we know how comforting they can be.