With the last posting, this writer completed his review of
content which he will use in the development of a unit of study for a civics
high school course. That course, at
least in Florida, is entitled American Government. It is a semester course and shares the senior
year, social studies requirement with another course, economics – each is a
half credit. This blog has been, in real
time, going through the various steps a teacher might take in developing a
unit. The topic of this demonstration is
foreign trade and how that trade affects the availability of jobs in the US.
Previously, this blog identified a
potential course outline – its list of units in order of presentation. To remind the reader, here is that outline:
•
The individual – short term interests vs. long term interests
•
The family – the effects of divorce
•
The neighborhood – responsibilities toward problem children
•
A small business – treatment of employees
•
A labor association (such as a union) – efficiency and quality issues
vs. worker interests
•
A large corporation – product safety
•
A local government (either city or county) – zoning or
racial/ethnic divisions
•
Law enforcement agency – judicial rights applicable to an accused
•
White House – leadership that advances social capital
•
Congress – the extent that money (donations) is influential
•
The courts – the role of interpreting constitutional principles as
expressions of social capital
•
Society during wartime – special demands on citizenship
•
International associations – levels of interdependence between
nations
As the reader can see,
each unit is listed by stating its main area of concern (e.g., Congress) and a
related issue that, if studied, would target addressing a social capital
related issue. This blog has made the
claim that federation theory is primarily focused in advancing social capital[1]
and civic humanism.[2] Therefore the above issues are judged to
reflect related concerns of these societal qualities.
The current unit being
developed was seen to potentially be logically inserted in the “large
corporation” slot or the “international associations” slot. The decision was made to situate it with the
latter issue or, as the last unit of the course. The course, as a semester course, lasts
eighteen weeks. There are thirteen units
which means at least four of the units can be two weeks in length, while the
remaining units would each be one-week long.
The extra week would be reserved for administrative purposes.
As pointed out in a
previous posting, this demonstration is introducing a new instructional
approach the developer calls historic dialogue.
Overall, this instructional strategy progresses through the course by working
through the following development:
discussion-argument-debate. As
this unit under discussion is the final unit of the course, it is assumed that
students would be at the debate level.
This posting, though, will describe briefly each of these stages – two
in this posting and the last one in the next posting.
Discussion stage, at the
beginning of the course, simply has students expressing their opinions
concerning the issues the content highlights.
So, for example, in the second unit, if the teacher uses the identified
issue, divorce, the teacher would bring up a suggested policy change in the
divorce laws – possibly making it more difficult to secure a divorce.
Perhaps the old state of New
York standard can be discussed in which divorce was only granted if one of the
parties engaged in an extra marital affair.
This was changed in 2010 to allow for “no-fault” divorces. Given the divorce rate is presently at 40 to
50 percent nationally, and all the disruptions that causes, should the divorce
laws change and become more stringent. This
could make for a spirited discussion.
At this point, the
purpose would be to get students comfortable with expressing an opinion allowing
for little to no criticism. Students
could just express what they think without having to defend their positions or,
if they do, briefly. A historical study
of New York’s law could accompany this discussion and be beneficial as it would
expose how law can affect family relations.
Also, the discussion is limited to one option: should the old New York law be reestablished? Yes or no.
The next stage is
argumentation. Here the student, who is
now hopefully comfortable with expressing opinions, is further encouraged to
engage in an argument. The focus now
shifts in having students, in their consideration of an issue, entertain two or
more options. The question becomes: which of the two or three policy options should
be implemented? These can be policy
positions or legislative bills (or a part of a bill) or suggested actions. Class arguments can be conducted with the
teacher being highly conscious of detecting illogical arguments such as the
fallacies this blog reported on several postings ago.[3]
The object is for
students to begin building argumentation skills. This calls on a regimen of critiques aimed at
improving student skills and is spurred by hearing, understanding, and applying
critical evaluations of their arguments.
Students should be, during this stage, instructed on the basic
components of a sound and meaningful argument.
Soundness is composed of applying
the demands of the various components that make up a sound argument as
identified by Stephen Toulmin’s model.
That model is composed of a conclusion, supportive factual information
(datum statements), warrant statement(s), backing of a warrant statement(s),
qualification(s), and reservation statement(s).[4]
Meaningfulness reflects
how qualitatively the argument relates to federalist values and how many people
are affected by its provisions. So, for
example, if a policy affects the equality status of millions of people, that is
meaningful. Students, in the experience
of this writer, tend to lack an appreciation on how policies can affect
citizens, especially if the issue involved does not directly affect them. Teachers should strive to get their students
to become more sensitive to these effects.
This ends this initial
description of the instructional strategy this unit will implement. In parting, the reader should consider that
to this point, this account has briefly reviewed the first two stages of the
historic dialogue approach to teaching civics.
What remains is the third stage, debate.
That will be the topic of the next posting.
[1] This blog, using the writing of Robert Putnam, defines
social capital to mean a societal quality characterized
by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political
relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.
[2] Civic humanism is defined as a collective
bias which holds that we, as citizens, are in a partnership in this polity.
[3] See posting, “Fallacy Types,” August 29, 2017.
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