The Reel Lives: Human Rights Curriculum is a Non-fiction, Common Core aligned unit centered around youth-created films.

Schools around the country are working to align their curricula to the Common Core Learning Standards. In particular, they place an strong emphasis on the reading of informational texts. It is particularly challenging to find highly engaging, student-centered informational texts that truly examine the perspectives and concerns of young people. The unit supports argumentation/essay writing/advocacy skills while providing content knowledge around the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The Reel Lives Curriculum helps teachers develop a transformative learning environment in their classrooms, where students emerge from the six week experience with a stronger sense of self and self agency; a demonstrated ability to use empathetic language in conversation and a clear understanding of the way they can advocate for themselves through new media. Paring non-fiction texts with youth-created documentaries provides educators with a highly engaging, student-centered access point that is also aligned with the new national standards.

Problem

Schools around the country are working this year to align their curricula to the Common Core Learning Standards. In particular they for an emphasis on the reading of informational texts. And it is particularly challenging to find highly engaging, student-centered informational texts that truly examine the perspectives and concerns of young people. No one in the NYC Department of Education is tackling the new Common Core Nonfiction ELA requirements using youth-created films as the basis for the six week lesson. TED is trying to bring TED talk to the classroom. However, the content is not student-centered nor is it a part of a comprehensive curriculum. In addition, organizations like Reel Works and Educational Video Center who produce student made films are not engaging these films potential to engage young people in Common Core based ELA tasks. At this point there is nothing like the Reel Lives curriculum available.

Solution

The Reel Lives Curriculum pairs non-fiction texts with youth-created documentaries providing educators with a highly engaging, student-centered access point that is also aligned with the new Common Core Standards. The Reel Lives Curriculum helps teachers develop a transformative learning environment in their classrooms, where students emerge from the six week experience with a stronger sense of self and self agency, a demonstrated ability to use empathetic language in conversation and a clear understanding of the way they can advocate for themselves through new media. In addition they scaffold their understanding of argumentation through essay writing and learn about Human Rights by examining the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

Exemple

When class begins students will be presented with a student film from the Reel Lives library. The class will engage in guided discussion questions which focus on inferencing skills relating the video to an activating schema (text to self, text to world, text to text). The Reel Lives targets the development of empathy by applying inferencing skills and activating schema. Students will be asked to explicitly relate their experiences and their impressions of the world around them with those of the filmmaker. Subsequently, direct instruction will deliver content on the human rights issue typified by the film while scaffolding argumentation/essay writing skills. Students will construct arguments about human rights violations that they see in the world around them by siting specific textual evidence using mobile apps, web-based materials, sample texts (literary non-fiction) and mind mapping apps such as Popplet. The Reel Lives curriculum makes a difference because it takes a student-centered approach to examining literary non-fiction and Human Rights. By narrowing the distance between the students and subject matter we facilitate connections while scaffolding those connections through interpretive practices and media literacy.

Marché

Public and Private Schools Nation-wide.