I blogged last year about trying to develop the elusive student voice in writing and working towards a writing curriculum that enables for real, authentic student voice.
This year, I shifted my focus to teaching students to “read like a writer” while working with mentor texts. Essentially, students are taught to notice writer craft choices that they eventually imitate in their own writing.
To begin the year, Kate Cutright and I developed a unit for juniors in response to the social unrest of the country. Students were allowed to pick from a list of seven socially-responsive topics to develop a position on and eventually their own Op-Ed in response to.
Students learned to identify the five types of argumentative claims as well as some logical fallacies. Students examined the rhetorical triangle and rhetoric as a persuasive tool. The goal was to use mentor texts and guided activities and assignments to help students examine the nuances of Op-Editorials. They also learned how to embed quotes and hyperlink evidence (something more and more writing does as it goes more and more digital).
Below, is a student learning to “read like a writer” and develop her own voice in her Op-Ed. I read with pleasure as her face was silenced by the power of her words in my mind.
If you have.a few moments, I invite you to read as well.
With our lives on hold and our domains restricted to the walls of our homes, the American people are paying attention. As we muddle through our second recession, open our eyes to racial disparity, and watch lives being helplessly lost to fearsome disease, we are becoming more in tuned to the value of money, the value of equality, and the value of life. And one American institution seems to be getting in the way of all three. In the wake of the wrongful deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police, the country has started to see just how much the police mess up and how much we are paying for it. Sadly, exorbitant police budgets have become a gaping sinkhole, and in several cases, a detrimental one, for taxpayer dollars in many communities, but is the American public ready to let go of our history of policing? And will it do us any good?
Defund the police. Some associate the phrase with a swift transition to a police-free America, while others believe it to be another code word for “Police Reform”. According to the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based public policy institution, defunding the police means “reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipalities,” but there is no official agreement on how it is to be done.
Police budgets across the country vastly outweigh those of their other public service counterparts. In 70% of the country’s fifty largest cities, the police account for the largest portion of their respective cities’ budgets. In Los Angeles, the LAPD takes up more of the city’s unrestricted revenue than all other departments combined, which is not outwardly a bad thing. It depends on whether or not the police departments that incur most of their cities’ expenses are repurposing the money in favor of the citizens. In Dewey Beach, DE, where full-time residents number in the three hundreds and only one homicide has ever been committed, the police have a military-caliber arsenal that includes “two Humvees, a diesel troop carrier, a Unimog with a loader and backhoe, two five-ton dump trucks, dozens of assault packs, 50 ammunition chests and assorted military rifles and pistols.” When discussing problems surrounding unnecessary weapons stockpiles, Dewey Beach’s watchdog group founder Jefferey Smith says, “You give police these kinds of military toys and that’s the attitude they then bring when they engage with the public.”
Such heavy emphasis on policing creates a ‘justice’ system based on retribution versus rehabilitation. The police enforce negative consequences of disobedience in our communities, but if people are only ever met with punishment and violence when they make mistakes, can they ever achieve a healthy and long-lasting dynamic? As said by Durham mayor Jillian Johnson, “The safest communities don’t have the most cops; they have the most resources.” In Memphis, TN, the local police department cut the number of officers in the field and the crime rate actually fell. This does pose the question of whether it is because crime actually drops or if criminals are simply not getting caught. But law enforcement consultants do often suggest out-sourcing lower priority tasks to civilian city departments, a main pillar of the “defund the police” argument. Ideas like special non-armed patrols and mechanics positioned to take care of traffic violations and onsite repair of vehicle infractions or people trained in addiction crises for drug-related calls, are some proposed alternatives to police.
However, the corruption that has affected the American policing system is partially based on a bias that is not isolated to law enforcement alone. Many other public services not only work in coordination with the police and sometimes their corrupt actions, but also fail to serve the people on their own. After being arrested for looking “sketchy” in August of 2019 and restrained with a carotid hold, Elijah McClain was sedated with an amount of ketamine inappropriate for someone of his height and weight. While there is no conclusive answer on the cause of his death, both police and paramedic misconduct can be seen, and it does not stop there. Pregnant black women and their children continue to suffer avoidable deaths because of medical negligence. Schools in poor neighborhoods remain underfunded because of inequitable tax distribution. People of color are still more likely to get a harsher court sentence than non-POC. However, the most significant fact is that other public service departments do not tote guns that give them the ability to take a life with less than a second’s thought. But if corruption is widespread throughout the country as a whole, will defunding the police really bring about the widespread change the American public so desperately wishes to see for those most at risk?
Bias is so widespread on an institutional level because it exists so heavily on individual levels. We all suffer from our own subconscious biases. For one person it might be what someone is wearing or the language. For another, it might be their gender, the color of their skin, or a number of other attributes. When we go to work and participate in society, we carry our biases with us, whether that job arms us with a gun or not.
Local governments across our country are in desperate need of a change, but the automatically proposed solutions might not be readily equipped to take it on. There are valid points for and against defunding the police, but as city and state officials examine them, they must keep in mind their ultimate goal. If left unquestioned, all societal institutions become vulnerable to corruption and incompetence. We have been conditioned to see our public services, most specifically law enforcement, with such impenetrable reverence that we have become blind to the possibility of their faults. If America wishes to truly be a land of opportunity for all, we must commit ourselves to removing the rose-colored glasses and seeing our government through a new and honest perspective.
Defund the police. Some associate the phrase with a swift transition to a police-free America, while others believe it to be another code word for “Police Reform”. According to the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based public policy institution, defunding the police means “reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipalities,” but there is no official agreement on how it is to be done.
Police budgets across the country vastly outweigh those of their other public service counterparts. In 70% of the country’s fifty largest cities, the police account for the largest portion of their respective cities’ budgets. In Los Angeles, the LAPD takes up more of the city’s unrestricted revenue than all other departments combined, which is not outwardly a bad thing. It depends on whether or not the police departments that incur most of their cities’ expenses are repurposing the money in favor of the citizens. In Dewey Beach, DE, where full-time residents number in the three hundreds and only one homicide has ever been committed, the police have a military-caliber arsenal that includes “two Humvees, a diesel troop carrier, a Unimog with a loader and backhoe, two five-ton dump trucks, dozens of assault packs, 50 ammunition chests and assorted military rifles and pistols.” When discussing problems surrounding unnecessary weapons stockpiles, Dewey Beach’s watchdog group founder Jefferey Smith says, “You give police these kinds of military toys and that’s the attitude they then bring when they engage with the public.”
Such heavy emphasis on policing creates a ‘justice’ system based on retribution versus rehabilitation. The police enforce negative consequences of disobedience in our communities, but if people are only ever met with punishment and violence when they make mistakes, can they ever achieve a healthy and long-lasting dynamic? As said by Durham mayor Jillian Johnson, “The safest communities don’t have the most cops; they have the most resources.” In Memphis, TN, the local police department cut the number of officers in the field and the crime rate actually fell. This does pose the question of whether it is because crime actually drops or if criminals are simply not getting caught. But law enforcement consultants do often suggest out-sourcing lower priority tasks to civilian city departments, a main pillar of the “defund the police” argument. Ideas like special non-armed patrols and mechanics positioned to take care of traffic violations and onsite repair of vehicle infractions or people trained in addiction crises for drug-related calls, are some proposed alternatives to police.
However, the corruption that has affected the American policing system is partially based on a bias that is not isolated to law enforcement alone. Many other public services not only work in coordination with the police and sometimes their corrupt actions, but also fail to serve the people on their own. After being arrested for looking “sketchy” in August of 2019 and restrained with a carotid hold, Elijah McClain was sedated with an amount of ketamine inappropriate for someone of his height and weight. While there is no conclusive answer on the cause of his death, both police and paramedic misconduct can be seen, and it does not stop there. Pregnant black women and their children continue to suffer avoidable deaths because of medical negligence. Schools in poor neighborhoods remain underfunded because of inequitable tax distribution. People of color are still more likely to get a harsher court sentence than non-POC. However, the most significant fact is that other public service departments do not tote guns that give them the ability to take a life with less than a second’s thought. But if corruption is widespread throughout the country as a whole, will defunding the police really bring about the widespread change the American public so desperately wishes to see for those most at risk?
Bias is so widespread on an institutional level because it exists so heavily on individual levels. We all suffer from our own subconscious biases. For one person it might be what someone is wearing or the language. For another, it might be their gender, the color of their skin, or a number of other attributes. When we go to work and participate in society, we carry our biases with us, whether that job arms us with a gun or not.
Local governments across our country are in desperate need of a change, but the automatically proposed solutions might not be readily equipped to take it on. There are valid points for and against defunding the police, but as city and state officials examine them, they must keep in mind their ultimate goal. If left unquestioned, all societal institutions become vulnerable to corruption and incompetence. We have been conditioned to see our public services, most specifically law enforcement, with such impenetrable reverence that we have become blind to the possibility of their faults. If America wishes to truly be a land of opportunity for all, we must commit ourselves to removing the rose-colored glasses and seeing our government through a new and honest perspective.
This could easily be a U.S. History assignment. I am interested in knowing the steps that led to the final draft; steps like research, outlining and peer editing. Maybe you use a totally different approach. Also, do you still do Works Cited and in-text citations? My students would love to not have to use MLA. I like it because it allows me to easily check their sources.
I talk to my students about flow. Maybe I should be saying voice instead of flow. Anyway, I would like to know more about the details of this lesson.
Mitch, I totally agree. I can show you process of developing drafts and peer revision that led to final drafts. Let's set a time to meet.