‘Why Are We Doing this?’ Youth Participatory Action Research, Place-Based Pedagogy and Student Writing Skills

by Emily Isaacs

March 19, 2015 

            How many times have you heard a student ask, “Why are we doing this? What is the point in learning this?” Now be honest with yourself—how many times have you asked these questions? This week, we discussed the issue of purpose by looking at student writing projects. One of our biggest job descriptions as teachers is that we need to teach our students how to write and how to write well. This can be accomplished by sending students off to the computer lab to research dinosaurs and write a five-paragraph essay about velociraptors, but are the students really learning anything other than the basic, standard conventions of a research paper? Our discussion focused on ways that we can teach writing and research skills while also incorporating topics that are directly meaningful for our students.  Our conversation was fueled by the article “Giving Their Words Back to Them, Cultural Journalism in Eastern Kentucky” by Carol Stumbo and Audra S.’s experience of using a version of Youth Participatory Action Research in a high school she taught at in Kentucky.

            Coming into last week’s class, we read about a project that Carol Stumbo implemented at her school in Eastern Kentucky. Stumbo taught in a town that was once what is referred to as a “model coal town.” However, as the coal industry started pulling out of the area, the town started to die. Stumbo and her students started a biannual magazine entitled Mantrip, which focused on the oral histories of the town. Students were responsible for interviews and editing the stories they collected from their interviewees. Stumbo found that this was a way for students to improve their writing skills, since most of the mistakes students focused on in the interviews were mistakes that they themselves made. Perhaps more importantly, students were able to become confident about the work they submitted, standing by their editing choices. Students were able to gain confidence and improve their writing while also focusing on the issues that were important to them and to their community. Their purpose was clear.  

            In class, Audra S. talked about Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). While Place-Based Pedagogy tends to focus on rural areas, YPAR focuses on urban areas and is usually operated outside the school through community-based organizations. YPAR allows students to act as the subject of a research study, but also the researcher. They cover topics that are meaningful to them, such as test scores, dropout rates, teen pregnancy, etc. and have the goal of creating an action plan for these issues. When students do the studies on issues that are meaningful to them, there is more insight into the topic—the students are living these issues, and therefore have a better perception of how things affect teenagers because, well, they are teenagers…

            After explaining YPAR, Audra S. told us how she implemented a version of it in her classroom in Kentucky. Over the course of six weeks, students conducted a research project based on issues in their community. Throughout the year, Audra spent time listening to issues that her students faced. The first week was spent posing problems and brainstorming ideas that the students were frustrated and/or hopeful about. After they had picked a topic, students began writing surveys that would get the information they wanted out of their target. They then began developing interview questions and practiced interviewing their classmates and other teachers. Following the surveys and interview process, students began conducting research online. Then began the part of their research that is particularly intimidating for us English people: data analysis (math!). Following all of these steps, students were ready to begin writing their papers. The actual writing of the paper may have seemed intimidating, but since they had conducted all of their research in advance, it was not as difficult of a feat as they may have originally anticipated.

            Audra’s students were able to engage in meaningful learning because they chose topics that were important to them. They certainly would have remembered more about writing a research paper by using an issue like how reclaimed mine land could be used than they would from that velociraptor paper I mentioned earlier. The students were seniors that were doing a dual credit with a local community college. I would argue that they learned considerably more from this type of research than they did from first year composition courses in college. Audra said that some of these students did not even know what a thesis statement was. Well, they certainly do now.

            One topic of discussion in our class was how often teachers in our state implement this sort of project. We came to the consensus that it is not very many. Sam raised this question after examining the work of students in English 101 and 102. While some of the students were familiar with research papers, many of them were not. In general, topics for the senior thesis focus on topics like gorillas, which could possibly allow students to come up with an action plan (if they were interested in a field like zoology), but in general does not give them the opportunity to look at the facets of a problem in their community and solve it.

            Jen says most of this arises from low expectations of students: “If they perform at any proficiency, they get an ‘A’ in writing.” I agree. This may be something that is unique to our Appalachian region, but I don’t think that it is. Writing assignments are a daunting task for students and teachers find them hard to grade for a number of reasons: time constraints, administration obsession with standardized testing, budgets, etc. Maybe for this reason, teachers grade easily. Is this benefiting our students? Not really. In fact, having low expectations for students isn’t helping them in the least. Audra C. teaches an introductory English course at the college level. She said that many of her students were disappointed with their midterm grades because they believed they were wonderful writers who did not need to improve. Their high school English teachers certainly did them a disservice.

            Allow me to be blunt: if we are giving our students half-hearted writing assignments, they’re going to (whether inadvertently or not) give us half-hearted work. By giving students research topics that only scratch the surface of what a research paper should look like on a topic that does not particularly interest them, we are killing their potential. I’ve been writing since the day I was born. However, if I were told to do a research project on the history of the Pythagorean Theorem, I’d blow it off. This is what students will do, too. Like the students in Carol Stumbo’s class who struggled with decision-making and standing by their choices, we need to teach our students to trust themselves. We should be teaching our students to be political and make plans of action rather than passive members of our Appalachian society. 

Bibliography

Stumbo, Carol. “Giving Their Words Back to Them: Cultural Journalism in Eastern Kentucky.”

            Students Teaching, Teachers Learning: 124-147. Boynton/Cook Heinemann. Porstmouth,

            NH. 1992.

Resources: 

• www.practicingfreedom.org
• www.peerresources.org
• www.incommunityresearch.org