Ramping Up Relevance With Community-Centered Learning

Several years ago, our staff chose “relevance” as one of our school improvement goals. In my work as a librarian and reading teacher, I was challenged to consider how to increase the relevance of what I ask students to do, specifically in the realms of reading, writing, and research.

Some students were willing to buy in and commit to most any task presented to them, but others were more reluctant. What’s in it for me? Why should I care? they implied through their apathy and disengagement.

One strategy I discovered was to tie learning activities directly to an authentic experience, so I began looking for ways to connect my teaching content to assets in our small rural town.

The result: two community-based research projects that were highly engaging for fifth- and sixth-grade students, met a variety of learning standards, and were heavily focused on authentic research and writing. 

Community research

I teach in the Midwest, and although our area is not a hotbed of tourist activity, we have an outstanding organization called the Kansas Sampler Foundation that promotes the assets of rural areas such as businesses, museums, and festivals.

Several years ago, this foundation launched The 8 Wonders of Kansas and invited people across the state to nominate community assets in eight categories: architecture, art, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history, and people—the eight elements of rural culture.

The foundation shared a list of semifinalists in each category and invited people to visit these places and vote for their favorite. The winners and finalists were published in a guidebook that serves as a road map for exploration of our state.

What if, I asked myself, I used this idea as a research model for my students? I pitched the idea to our fifth-grade social studies teacher as a collaborative project, and we worked together to bring it to life.

We divided students into groups and assigned one of the eight categories to each. We helped them brainstorm possibilities and connected them with resources as they researched. Students immersed themselves in our community as they visited local sites, read primary sources, conducted interviews, took photos, wrote scripts, and created a narrated video slide show featuring three finalists in their category.

The finished product was presented to our entire school, where students and staff voted on their favorites from each category. But the real winners were our students, who had gone through a rigorous research and writing process to create an authentic product.

Tips for implementation

To implement this project in your classroom, you don’t have to use all eight categories. Adapt the idea to fit your learning objectives, audience, time frame, and location. Maybe you want to focus on three or four of the categories. Or you could modify the categories by focusing, for example, on people, places, and events.

As students brainstorm ideas, the teacher acts as a guide and facilitator. For example, my co-teacher and I guided students toward thinking about local people who have made a difference in the lives of others, such as teachers, coaches, doctors, businesspeople, and those who run nonprofit organizations.

We brought in some community experts to our brainstorming sessions, people with strong ties to our community who were knowledgeable about our history as well as current and former residents. For the “people” category, our students chose a doctor from the 1800s, a college basketball coach, and a business owner. They did research on the doctor and interviewed the coach and business owner.

The “places” category could include historical sites, homes, or buildings; landmarks and geographic features like parks or bodies of water; institutions; or businesses. The goal is to highlight significant and unique elements of your community.

This is the perfect opportunity to delve into primary sources covering your town’s or city’s history. Leading your students to books, newspaper articles, oral histories, and photos teaches them how to conduct authentic research and that there are relevant options beyond Google.

Buoyed by the success of the eight wonders project, I looked for other ways to integrate community assets into the curriculum.

Art walk

In my sixth-grade literature circles class, we read a mystery book with a strong art component. To meet my goal of increasing relevance, I took students on an art walk around our community. We studied the architecture of buildings, sculptures, murals, and stained glass windows in churches, and visited an art gallery. Students took photos and were able to interact with some of the artists.

Back in the classroom, I asked students to share their thoughts on the purpose and benefits of art and to include photos of their favorite art encountered on the art walk. They wrote about their experiences in a slide show. I also asked them to share photos of art from their home and to research a piece of famous, museum-quality art.

The result was high engagement, critical thinking and evaluation, utilization of robust writing and technology skills, and excitement to share their work.

How to get started

Pay attention to the art in your community, and watch for opportunities to engage students. Look for public art like sculptures, murals, or buildings with interesting architecture. Many towns have memorials honoring members of the military, public servants, or notable citizens.

Reach out to local artists, and ask if your students would be able to view their work. Ask your school’s art teacher, or one at a neighboring school, if you might visit and see work created by students. If there’s a local art gallery or arts council, reach out to ask about upcoming exhibits.

If you’re not able to view the art in person, a virtual field trip is the next best thing. My state’s tourism website features murals around the state and provides an excellent virtual tour. You could also do an online search for public art in a nearby city.

A few questions that work well to get learners thinking about and discussing art:

• What did you notice?
• What surprised you?
• Use the proposed Visual Thinking Strategy to ask these questions: What’s going on here? What makes you say that? What more can we find?

Community-based learning proved to be a game-changing strategy for my lesson design. Student engagement and enthusiasm skyrocketed as a result of my intentional search for relevance. By integrating community assets into classroom learning, I found a successful way to increase the relevance of reading, writing, and research tasks for students.