sharing a success after a few weeks of thinking about it

My coop and I have very open dialogue in between and after classes. We dissect the way they reacted to lessons and materials and texts, authors themes, its almost too much sometimes. But two weeks ago now, i suggested to Mr. Karli that we do something to help students have empathy and objective understanding for people with values, beliefs, and political convictions other than their own, as I felt some of their discussions were too polarized in dichotomies and not enough common ground was being recognized. He loved the idea, and we continued to look through some of the texts on the syllabus through which we could enhance this idea and found a nonfiction text by Jack London called "What life means to me." This was perfect, and since my coop had not really done this sort of thing before he asked me right away if I would design a lesson.

It took a painstaking 4 hours to plan for one block's lesson but it was worth it:

I started out with a brief discussion on worldview, having post it notes of differing colors for the students to write down the best definition they could for "what is a worldview?"

Then, we proceeded to free write the following prompts based off of London's essay, "What life means to me?" and "What is the meaning of life?"

We opened up discussion as a class after the free writes and constructed the different factors that affect a person's worldview, i.e. race, citizenship, religious beliefs, upbringing, experiences, failures, culture, etc also using the student definitions to draw more of these sub-groups.

Next we discussed London's worldview, exposing the aspects from the text with our constructed sub-categories, finding he was a socialist, very poor, etc. leading to discussions that he may be justified in his views based on his life experiences, etc.

Finally, we broke into groups and had discussion questions to help support the essential questions, which were first seen in the free writes. The students each reported to one of the discussion questions and then students had the chance to elaborate or refute the group's response to the question. I planned for this to take approx. 20 minutes, and it ended up lasting an hour, as the students were extremely interested in fleshing out the discussion questions.

Finally, the next day, we debriefed by talking about our free-writes. Some students shared, others jet listened, but student engagement was there. I assigned them homework: a one page revision/reflection on one or both of their earlier free writes.

Now, having graded and responded to their revisions/reflections I feel I was successful in a small way, in helping them realize how they come to know and believe what they do and how others do the same thing in their lives, but in a different context. And that the strength of human bonds is found in the similarities to that experience, the compromise, the common ground.

PS- Mr. Karli used the same lesson plan I developed for his 12th graders, and assigned a larger paper, centered around finding 10 quotes that either directly support or refute the students personal worldview. They just handed it in today, so I am anxious to get to read some of their expanded essays!

Intense and humbling experience, and it wouldn't have been possible if Mr. Karli wasn't flexible and willing to hand me the reigns. It was invigorating and truly challenging to have to plan and execute an entire lesson already. It felt like a sink or swim moment, and I feel as though I was at least able to tread water!