Investigating Issues in Local Communities

This unit was created by Stephanie King, a high school English Language Arts educator in Granger, WA, as part of the 2023-2024 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program. It is designed for facilitation across eight 50-minute class periods, with work outside of class.

For more units created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.

Objectives:

Students will be able to: 

• Compose a news article strategically for a variety of audiences and contexts, both within and outside the school by…
  • Coordinating, negotiating, and experimenting with various aspects of composing news articles- such as genre, content, conventions, style, language, organization, appeals, media, timing, and design- for diverse rhetorical effects tailored to the given audience purpose, and situation
• Work strategically with complex information in order to generate and support inquiry by
  • Gathering, evaluating, and making purposeful use of primary and secondary materials appropriate for the writing goals, audience, genre, and context

Unit Overview:

This unit focuses on  underreported stories, investigative journalism, and writing for a specific target audience. The pedagogical vision is that students and the instructor jointly shape the learning 

of students through close readings, connecting the readings to writing skills, and composing articles for students’ local newspapers. Students will learn what underreported stories are, why they matter, and how to write a story that matters in their local community. The scope and sequence will mirror the vision in that students will engage in pre-reading, reading, and post reading activities along with the writing process.

Essential questions:

1. What are the underreported issues in our communities? What is misunderstood about the issues facing students in our communities?
2. How do you compose and share a story that communicates an underreported story to a target audience?
3. How can storytelling make complex issues relevant and inspire actions?
4. How are issues in our own communities connected to issues faced by communities in other parts of the world?
5. How do you determine if something is true?

Students draw conclusions from a school-wide survey about a topic they view as underreported in their community. Students will then research and write their own articles about the topic they select. During the writing process, they are identifying and interviewing stakeholders. The goal is then to submit the articles to the local newspaper for possible publication. This unit has students’ skills moving from reader to writer. They started by annotating news articles (noticing positives/negatives, questions they had, identifying author’s purpose, target audience, what prompted the writing of the story, and what the claim was). They must apply this analysis to their own writing.

Performance Task(s):

1. Students will evaluate an article through annotations and discussion to determine why it is considered an underreported story. Students will make connections to their own community and what they observe based on their personal experiences. This article will serve as an exemplar for students to model their own research after for the summative assessment.
2. Students will be tasked with investigating their own topic or issue based on observations and wonderings of their own community. Students will create a cycle of inquiry in which they craft a research question that will be part of a survey. The survey will consist of one question per student in the class, each dealing with a different topic. The survey will be taken by each student in the school. The data collected from the survey will guide students in writing their own articles to be published in the local newspaper to spread awareness of the issue directly to community members.  Students will then research and write an article about their selected topic that integrates details they learn from the survey and details from their own research.

If/when student articles are published, a social media campaign will be developed through the school’s Instagram and Facebook accounts to promote the writing and suggested solutions to each topic. This will broaden the target audience of the original writing to include those that don’t have access to the local newspaper or the ability to read English.

Assessment/Evaluation:

Formative Assessment Tool: Doubly Entry Journal for a News Article [.pdf][.docx]

This assessment asks students to identify 12 quotes from the news article analyzed in this unit, and then to connect to each quote using one of 12 prompts. 

Summative Performance Task Rubric [.pdf][.docx]

This rubric evaluates students’ final writing assignments using three categories: Establishment of Purpose/Focus and Organization, Development: Language and Elaboration of Evidence, and Conventions

Eight-lesson unit plan for teachers, including pacing, texts and multimedia resources, guiding questions for group discussions, performance task instructions, and grading rubric for the unit. This unit was written to be taught over the course of eight classes, but can shortened or extended as needed.

Unit Resources:

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.B: Develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.C: Use appropriate and varied transitions and syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.D: Use precise language, domain-specific vocabulary, and techniques such as metaphor, simile, and analogy to manage the complexity of the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.E: Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.F: Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented (e.g., articulating implications or the significance of the topic).

The following examples capture how students in Granger, WA engaged with this unit in spring 2024.

1. Students start this unit by evaluating their engagement with news, the purpose of news, and how journalists compose stories to communicate research to an audience. They annotated the article, “Addiction Ravaged My Family and Tribe. I’m Fighting To Get Them Back” by Justin Maxon and Judith Surber for The New York Times and used a double entry journal graphic organizer to make connections to the article.

2. Granger High School students then identified topics they believed to be underreported in their communities and devised research questions related to their topics. Students then used the research questions to survey their classmates about their ropics, and to identify potential interview sources. They then reported stories, revised their stories with peer support, and published their stories in SunnySide Sun, a local newspaper for the lower Yakima Valley in Washington state.

The following are draft stories from Granger High School students on topics they researched in their communities.

• Adrian reports on youth access to alcohol
• Serrenity reports on declines in attendance
• Evenny reports on literacy in Granger, WA

3. While writing their stories, students engaged with Pulitzer Center's virtual journalist visit program and asked a Center grantee for tips with research and interviewing for their stories.

4. Students conclude the unit by writing short reflections about their key takeaways from the project.