Social Justice Symposium: Creating and Learning about PSAs
Right now my class is working towards a Social Justice Symposium. We are using literature and lessons to explore different social justice topics linked to racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and eco-justice. Many of these topics have intersections, which my class explored this week (look for an upcoming blog post).
This post outlines how my class explored Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and worked with their groups to create two PSAs for different purposes: one digital and one paper. These will be displayed on the different tables as part of our Social Justice Symposium. The digital PSAs have also been put on a SWAY that will be send to all of the classes presenting so that they can learn some background about the topics they might explore.
Timeline
I only work 80%, so I would normally have done about 90 minutes each day, but I doubled up one day during the week to make sure everything got done. The timeline for this was SHORT (one week). This means that the PSAs are not perfect, but they are thoughtful and allowed for deep learning.
Monday: We unpacked PSAs and started research…homework was to have ANY additional research done by Wednesday.
Wednesday: 2 Hours to work on the visual PSA planning sheet and the storyboard for the movie
Thursday: 90 minutes with technology to print any images/work on their poster and do any final research with an additional 90 minutes to finish their posters.
Friday: 2 hours to make their video PSAs from start to finish and airdrop them to the teacher laptop
Following Monday: Design Kahoot! Questions before exploring the print PSAs and watching the videos.
Cross Curricular Links
I want to pause for a moment to look at the BIG Ideas in the curriculum connected to this activity. This was cross-curricular and I am not even unpacking the Core Competencies linked to this activity (Communication, Collaboration, and Creative Thinking) or the possible Fine Arts links…I will save that for when I talk about our Quilt for Social Justice (See future posts).
Language Arts
This activity plays around with ALL four of these…and most of these ideas are consistent across the grades. There was a comprehension piece as they unpacked and learned about PSAs as well as when they collected research through their notes. They used everything they had read and learned to make connections in the world and help others understand complex language. They learned about different perspectives and how to share their perspectives in different formats. They played with communication in two vastly different forms and learned the strength of both.
Social Studies
Technically this year I am not assessing Social Studies (thank you job share partner), but I can make a solid argument for why first and the third Big Idea for Social Studies are built on through the PSA activity. The students working on the Asian/South Asian Social Justice PSA pulled heavily on their Social Studies lessons and mentioned the Komagata Maru, the Head Tax, AND Japanese Interment in their PSAs. This cross-pollination of ideas is powerful and shows me the lessons they are learning about Canadian history are sticking.
ADST
Again, I could probably make a case for all three of these. They prototyped their movie through storyboarding and planning. It was an intense week of learning how to communicate using different formats and the kids developed many technical skills through hard work and practice. The groups also had to think about how they would use technology for each task efficiently and effectively.
Technical jargon done…let’s get to the activity!
What are PSAs?
To get the kids thinking about PSAs, we showed them three PSAs to analyze in pairs. We showed the PSA once and gave time to fill out the form before showing it a second time and having groups share their ideas. Throughout the videos, we also created a list as the class for what seemed to make a powerful PSA. Since this is the first time we had done this lesson, my librarian and I realized we wanted to change a few things the next time we taught it. You can download the updated sheet HERE.
we purposely used PSAs of different lengths (30s, 1 min, 90s) and that used different persuasive techniques (experts, famous people, statistics, everyday folks, emotional appeals) to show the kids different ways to share their messages.
By the end of this lesson, the students had a pretty good list of what made a powerful PSA and they were excited to start their research.
Research: Sketchnotes!
Students were given time after the PSA lesson to start their notes. By this point, the students had been part of their new social justice group for one week and had read several of the picture books. We had also been learning about using sketchnotes as a way to visually record and remember information. We challenged the kids the use the sketchnote technique to collect background information. Since all groups had four kids who would be working together on the PSAs, we encouraged the groups to talk together and decide which parts of the topic they would be researching. Some groups took our suggestion…some did not.
The students were told that we would really start making the PSAs on Wednesday, so if they wanted to do some research at home, they could. I am not a big advocate of homework, but I wanted to let the kids know that this was an option if they wanted.
Planning the PSAs
The groups were given TWO sheets to start thinking about planning their PSAs:
A planning tool with very similar questions to the sheet we used to analyze the PSAs earlier in the week.
A basic storyboard to sketch out the video PSA
We also had scrap paper so the kids could sketch/block out their visual PSA. This planning was done in one block. We also had computers for a 90 minute block to help the kids find images they wanted to use and do any final research.
Creating the PSAs
Visual PSA
Basically the kids were working on their visual PSA during the work blocks on Wednesday and Thursday. It had to be done by Thursday. They were supposed to refer to their goals and planning sheet. We talked as a class about the purpose and audience:
Purpose: To teach people about the topic and what people can do to help
Audience: Intermediate students at the school, teachers, and parents
The groups essentially created the visual PSAs in 2-3 hours. Does this mean that they look perfect? Not really, but they are filled with useful information and ideas. They have strong images and tried very hard to use text features such as headings, fact boxes, and webs to share information efficiently. Also, groups made mistakes and learned from them. They reflected on the fact that perhaps, they should have planned the space out more or used their time more efficiently early on so that they were not rushing during the last thirty minutes. All of this was valuable learning.
Video PSA
On Friday morning, the groups had two hours and their planning sheets to shoot, edit, and airdrop their PSAs. I have done this before. In fact, last year my kids had the same timeline to create and finish a video about thinking traps, so I know it is possible. I don’t like to drag out the time kids have technology. I would rather they plan in advance, know the time limit, and get it done. Kids will succeed.
My teaching partner and I circulated and we allowed the kids to film both in the library and outside. I had an epiphany and ran down the hall to the classroom with seven iPad stands and gave each group one…this allowed each group to (1) learn how to use an iPad stand and (2) shoot with a steady camera.
We also made a rule that the groups were not allowed to include bloopers because of the tone/audience for the PSAs. Kids love adding bloopers and I do usually allow one or two, but the kids understood why they would not be appropriate in this case.
Once the videos were finished, kids put them on their digital portfolio and airdropped them to the library computer. We have made a SWAY using Office365 that we will fancy-up to send out to intermediate classes that are attending to help prime them on the topics.
Again, were the PSAs perfect? No. They were, however thoughtful and showed growth in understanding how to use technology. When we are learning about social justice topics, we can make mistakes—it is a part of talking and learning about hard things. That is okay. It is important to do the work with ourselves and our kids so we can have a world full of critical thinkers that see a better possibility for this world.
Sharing the PSAs/Self Reflection
We recorded the PSAs on Friday and explored them on Monday. On Monday, students worked on a self reflection and posted their PSA posters on the wall. They also watched all of the PSA videos. They used the information from each others PSAs to complete their self reflection. You can download a copy of the self reflection sheet HERE.
Class Kahoot! (Student Request!)
While the kids were doing the planning for their PSAs, one group approached me and asked if they could make a Kahoot! quiz instead. We talked about why we were doing the PSAs AND how we could do a Kahoot! at the end based on the PSAs. The group helped me plan the Kahoot! activity. Each group would write two true or false questions and two multiple choice. My teaching partner and I collected the questions and made ONE 28 question Kahoot! that we played as a class. The groups worked together to get the highest score.
I created a graphic organizer to help plan the questions and this could be used for ANY topic. I changed the graphic organizer to better reflect the Kahoot! layout. You can download a copy of my new graphic organizer HERE.
For this Kahoot! the goal was to pull the most important ideas from the PSAs that the groups wanted to reinforce. My teaching partner and I floated around and helped with rewording. We have promised the class that we will make a SUPER TRICKY Kahoot! next week for fun, but that wasn’t the purpose of this Kahoot! We have decided that we will send a link for the more general Kahoot! out to any classes that attend our symposium so they can review what they might have learned.
It was a wonderful learning experience and I am so glad my students suggested it. Kids have such great ideas!
Final Thoughts
Short and powerful. The kids had to problem solve and create two pieces of media to be consumed in one week. We ended with a celebration game and everyone had fun. The kids made something for the symposium and this lesson set the class up to understand our intersectionality lesson because everyone had a bit of a background in all of the topics.