Occupy Wall Street Lesson Plan

This week I've been inspired by the work at LaGuardia Community College with their "Community 2.0" initiative (http://lagccnetworks.blogspot.com/) as well as the Occupy Wall Street protest and global movement. This blog will incorporate those two preoccupations, as I think about how to use OWS in the classroom effectively and to share that with students and colleagues.

In my first semester, BAUS course, "Self-Assessment through Writing & Technology," students are working on a Personal Essay, and I thought an experiential learning activity could help deepen their understanding of writing as social action, the topic of today's class. I polled students through Twitter: who wants to go to OWS as a fieldtrip this week? One student responded asking if the fieldtrip would be to a movie, to which I responded: "I was thinking something more immediate, active, and political: #occupywallstreet. Check out Eileen's posts @ #theluckyflannel" which allowed me to direct the class to one of their colleagues who has been very active in OWS. I also Tweeted a link to her Blog, which she showed me in class, documeting her experience in the field. She explained that her phone made it easy for her to blog, and that she was using that as a source to document her experiences.

1. BLOG
This week in class, we discussed OWS before writing about it. They were given three options and were asked to choose one, write about it, and post their writing on our Moodle Forum.

"Three options today. Pick one -- They are all about Occupy Wall Street.
1) Brainstorm what it means to you. Then write an op-ed piece arguing your position on the movement and post it here.
2) Watch this video: http://bit.ly/r5NXht. What is our role when observing atrocities? Does our "witnessing" (Behar, The Vulnerable Observer) implicate us, and what does our writing about it do?
3) Read my blog on Maybachs, Kanye, & OWS and respond to the issues it raises: http://drlynnsally.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-top-1.html

The blogs they wrote in response to this assignment were -- across the board -- solid, interesting, passionate, and well-written and argued.

2. HOMEWORK
This week, I asked students to Tweet about OWS -- many have already been doing so organically: "In preparation for our fieldtrip to Occupy Wall Street, retweet resources, articles, blogs, videos you find, as well as a few tweets of your own about the issue(s) represented in this protest. Think about how social media has helped turn this into a global protest movement."

To prepare for the Fieldtrip to OWS, I posted the following in Moodle: "In Writing and Community Action, the authors discuss writing as action, a "means by which to pursue a variety of personal and social goals" (2)." As we prepare for our fieldtrip to Occupy Wall Street, does this idea of writing as action have real-world meaning? If so, how? If not, why? What's the relationship between writing and social protest? Does our writing have "higher stakes" when there's material reality involved? How does our relationship to ourselves, to our learning, and to our writing change, at all, when we are "in the trenches?""

3. REFLECTION & WRITING
The above homework post continues with the following for students to think about, and to link the experience with the essay: "Consider how to incorporate the work we do this week in the Experiential Fieldtrip to our Personal Essays. What are the limitations of a traditional "classroom", and how has social media transformed how we learn and share information? Do you think having class outside of class is productive? What works and what doesn't work? How has your relationship to your writing changed -- if at all -- through the use of Twitter and the Moodle Discussion Board?

Another draft of your Personal Essay is due week 7. Either 1) post it on Moodle for a Peer Review Workshop on line or 2) return to MCNY after our fieldtrip for a face-to-face Peer Review Workshop."

I've asked students to post their experience of the OWS Fieldtrip on a Moodle Forum: "Write about your experience at the Occupy Wall Street protest. With descriptive details, describe what you experienced. What did you see? What was your interpretation of the scene? What effect do you think the protests are having? Did you think this fieldtrip was an "educative experience"? If so, how does it relate to self-assessment, writing, and technology? If not, what could make it a more useful exercise?"

I will update this lesson plan as it develops, as well as report to its degree of successfulness. You may copy some or all of this lesson plan, but kindly provide a link to this blog.