Social Justice Symposium: Social Justice Quilt
For the past several weeks, my students have been exploring different social justice topics through literature and lessons. They have participated in several literature bins which were organized into different topics. We have looked at diversity in literature, important moments in history from each topic, banning books, intersectionality, and ways to be an ally. The Social Justice Symposium is coming up fast and we are slowly making different components. Poems are being revised and our final art project is done.
This post walks you through the final art project, as well as how it changed through the unit. The biggest change was the inspiration: The Witness Blanket. The lesson about The Witness Blanket explored the power of an installation where history, story, artifacts, social justice, and art meet.
Inspiration and Evolution: How ideas percolate
Right from the first planning of this unit, Chantal (my teaching partner in crime) and I knew that this unit would link fine arts, language arts, and social justice. When we envisioned the symposium, we wanted to include some sort of collaborative art project that encompassed student learning.
Our original thought was Banksy! Wouldn’t it be neat to explore the Banksy protest art and the style? We could have the students try to emulate it through a piece of artwork and write an artist’s statement. We weren’t fully set on the idea, and through our research we realized that the Banksy art might be hard for our kids to unpack and that it would be far beyond their scope of reference.
About the same time, I started to think about different memorials and pieces of artwork around Canada like the Komagata Maru Memorial in Coal Harbour as well as murals on the sides of buildings. Chantal and I were chatting about how we wanted a reference point based in Canada and I suddenly thought about The Witness Blanket.
I used a few videos about The Witness Blanket for my lesson, including the one here. The Witness Blanket is a 40 ft long installation on cedar panels that includes over 800 artifacts from residential schools (e.g., skates, door hinges, photos) and government buildings (cloth from the governor general’s room). This piece has artifacts from 70 different schools, as well as documents such as letters from parents and legal documents. This installation travelled across Canada and is currently at the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg. Each artifact has a story. All of the artifacts and stories were collected by the artist Carey Newman. There is a website and an app that will allow you to look at all of the pieces of the witness blanket and learn the stories behind each piece.
Using the Witness Blanket as inspiration felt like a powerful opportunity. We were able to once again explore historical injustice with my class and at the same time think about why and how art can be used to build understanding and affect change. This lesson had such a strong impact on my students that one of them included drawings of artifacts from The Witness Blanket in his Social Justice Quilt square.
Changing plans on the fly…
In classic classroom form, Chantal and I had everything ready. The PowerPoint was queued, the handouts photocopied, and the board setup—and then eight kids in a class of twenty-eight were away. We had planned to do the first lesson on the Monday, and on the Thursday, it would be a work block. We would also introduce the Pride Poster Contest our district was running.
We very quickly decided to shift gears and did introduced the contest, which was a nice follow-up to our PSA lesson. We told the kids the district focus and they very quickly brainstormed ideas to make their PSAs strong.
The kids were trying to design a poster based on their favourite LGBTQ2+ characters in literature for the contest. Winners from across the district will be chosen for the posters that will be made next year.
(Actual) Lesson 1: The Power of a Social Justice Instillation (The Witness Blanket)
We looked at projected images of The Witness Blanket and completed an OWI chart on the board and on paper.
I showed a short video about The Witness Blanket while the kids added to their OWI charts (the video inserted in the post earlier).
We learned about some logistics of the installation.
We watched an interview with the creator of The Witness Blanket and continued our OWI charts (see video below).
We ended with a final quick chat and write that reflected on The Witness Blanket and started to make connections to our Social Justice Quilt.
The lesson was powerful and the kids made strong connections with their previous learning about residential schools as well as their more recent learning about social justice. The kids said so many powerful things, but I would like to share two:
“Blankets are supposed to keep you safe, so the Witness Blanket is keeping the memories safe—unlike the kids at residential schools”
“I think we are witnessing the history and the horrors. We are keeping the memories alive by seeing the artifacts and learning about them. That is why this is a Witness Blanket”
Lesson 2: Planning & Rough Draft
About a month ago, I did a numeracy task with my class called the Sawtooth Star. It involved learning a bit about quilts, symmetry, and proportional reasoning. The students had to create a quilt patch based on a series of constraints. This meant that when I introduced the quilt idea, the kids had a frame of reference. We were able to provide very little instruction and really had the kids start working. My teaching partner and I went over the rules and had the kids plan on the graphic organizer provided and sketch out a rough draft. You can download the project outline HERE.
Generally, each quilt square had to:
Focus on a single social justice topic (intersectionalities may be included, but the focus should be on the main topic)
Share the most important learning (centre square)
Share how to be an ally
Share 2-3 books
Share the emotions felt while learning about the topic
Lesson 3: Work Block (Good copy & Artists Statement)
Once students had their square done, they used the Artist’s Statement graphic organizer to plan out their writing before writing rough draft. The kids did a quick revision with an adult pushing their thinking/adding ideas before handing the final draft in. I really like to work with kids when revising to build their understanding of what revision is as we bounce ideas off of each other.
I typed up all of the drafts with final comments for revision and gave this back to the kids. They did one final revision and I made the changes digitally. It was a powerful back and forth. The revision was about content/thinking and all of the students wrote powerful paragraphs/ideas.
This is the Artist’s Statement for the quilt square near the start of this blog post.
Collaborative Artwork: A Picture of Our Learning
In total, this took about a week about 90-minutes each day from learning about the Witness Blanket through revising their artist’s statements. We used a paper cutter to cut out the squares and the kids glued them onto backgrounds. Yesterday, the amazing Chantal taped together the quilt while I built the Banned Books Bar Graph. Living the teacher dream on a Friday afternoon.
The final product is incredible and we added the grid system around the outside so that it will be easy for visitors to the symposium to find the matching artist’s statement. The quilt is currently hanging in the library to keep it safe until the symposium next week.
I would like to take a moment to share gratitude about my teacher friend. We have been collaborating since my first year at the school when she approached me to make book trailers for the Surrey School Picture Book of the Year Nominees with my class, and it hasn’t stopped since.
When I approached her three years ago with a mixed bin literacy/socials unit that ended with a Museum of Forgotten History…she jumped in and believed in my vision. I even sent her possible book lists and she purchased them for the library. She brought her loose parts knowledge to my classroom and I have learned so much from her.
Chantal has also been with me celebrating my writing and helped give feedback. She has possibly read more drafts of some of the books than my husband. She really hopes that at some point my literary agent and I work on Squirrel Saves the Forest for publication, because she loves the little main character (who defeats the evil ivy).
This year has truly been finding excuses to collaborate and do amazing things with kids. She joined me for the cardboard arcade, a storytelling unit, and some random other lessons. Since I wasn’t teaching socials this year, we couldn’t do the Museum of Forgotten History. I approached her with a kernel of an idea about mixed social justice bins ending in a symposium. We brainstormed before spring break and I worked more during the break. This has been a truly collaborative unit and we have had fun exploring new ideas.
I might change schools this year, and if I do, I know I will miss our collaborations—but I will be grateful for the time we have had together. Teacher librarians rock!
Final Thoughts
When I looked at the final product, I felt joy. I could see the growth of understanding in the complex topics amongst all of my kids. I am proud of how they tackle subjects fearlessly and feel confident talking about period poverty, #BLM, banned books, intersectionality, the rise in Asian hate crimes, and ableism (among other things). These are hard topics and they are a reality of the world we live in. From a kernel of an idea, to preparing for a powerful symposium, it has been a wild ride.
When I hung out with my friend on Friday, I felt gratitude. I challenge you to think about your teacher friends. Maybe even friends from previous schools. Think about the impact they had on your teaching career and your time at the school. If you can, reach out to them. This time of year, we can all use a positive connection.