A Sympathy Protest: Products, Practices, and Perspectives in a Language Classroom

Abstract

As K-16 teachers continue to reflect on how the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the Twentieth-First Century can help to provide a framework for instruction, curriculum and assessment, it is always helpful to analyze concrete examples. This article details a lesson that weaves together real-world political events with the arts and engages students in political protest at the same time. The lesson supports the vision of the Standards and demonstrates how it is possible to have students engage in intellectually challenging tasks in the target language. The authors hope that this article will serve to continue the dialogue and sharing of what all effective language teachers do in classrooms to realize the vision of the Standards to provide real-life communicative tasks that both teach and engage students in using the target language.