Ok, I finally got it. Wiggling?

I am very intersted in issues of social justice and as an adult have had many opportunities to explore this topic in many ways and many places But how do you "bring up" this topic as a sourc of inquiry to a group of 5th graders. They have a natural sense of fairness. How do we tap into this.

It came to me today, an advantage of driving 40 min. to school... price of gas: $3/ gallon...thinking time.. priceless.

First we model the inquiry process. Then we intoduce the topic... Fairness and What to do When something is not fair. We have all experienced things we didn't think were fair, in the classroom, on the athletic field, decisions by out parents, etc. These are personal connections with fairness. We know when things are unfair. But what can you do about it? We must acknowlege unfair situations in our history. How and who took action to make a change? Unfair things are still happening. How and who is taking action to make these changes?

So the shape this is taking makes connections between personal feelings of unfairness and a connection between past and current glogal exapmles of unfairness.

The preentation to the students will cause them to think about larger issures of fairness/justice and several examples of ordinary people who stood up to make things fair. The student writing project could be an issue that the student take a position to challenge fairness, researches his or her postion and makes a presentation in a format of his or her choice. The student writing project may be an examination of an individual who acted in the interest of fairness. And the project may include an idea that the collaborating teachers may not have considered but is driven by student interest