Introduction
Chapter 1 — Social Action: An Overview
Social Action’s Role & US College Social Action
Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class
Course vs Co-Curricular & Prerequisites
Creating a Social Action Syllabus
Teaching Style & Classroom Norms
Role of Place & Each Semester v Every Year
Chapter 3 — Teaching Social Action (TSA) Model
Chapter 4 — Where Do We Go From Here?
Introduction
A social action course must include: (1) Issue Development (i.e., demands and a target); (2) Building Power; (3) Campaign Launch (includes a discussion of tactics). While your course can explore other topics, the above three topics are required for it to be considered a social action class.
When creating your syllabus, the key things is to have the students start their campaign activities (i.e., naming their group, developing and refining their demands, meeting with stakeholders, etc) by the 2nd or 3rd week of the class. This is in line with our overall teaching social action philosophy of On Your Mark, GO, Get Set. This will make sure that students have the opportunity TO DO action, rather than just talk about change.
As you create your syllabus, feel free to borrow from SML’s Sociology 164: Social Action syllabus. Some Institute participants use the format from this syllabus for their classes. Feel free to do this, or you may want to add/subtract from it. In addition, you might want to review the syllabi from over 100+ courses that have been created by Institute participants from a variety of disciplines. The key part of this model is that students do “policy change” through a campaign.
Please use the below Course Planning Document to help you create your syllabus.
- Course Planning Document - Click link below to download this course planning worksheet.
Listen to Scott discuss how “policy change” requires students to make a demand of a decision-maker. Scott also discusses the two opening lines of his syllabus: “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand” by Xun Kuang, a Confucian philosopher from 312-230 BCE, and “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will” by Frederick Douglass.
Listen to Dr. Arun Argawal, University of Notre Dame, discuss how he created his social action syllabus after participating in an Institute:
Listen to to Scott discuss how students should complete 1.5 hours of campaign work each week:
As you create you syllabus, you will want to address:
- Readings (see below for more info)
- Assignments and Grading Policy
- Readings Schedule (check out 7 weeks and Go!)
- Tracking of Student Campaigns
Readings
"CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action" was written for faculty to use in social action classes. You can use this text, or you can use some other social action book here. Also, feel free to use the readings from SML’s Social Action course reader. The reader includes case studies of previous student social action campaigns, student reflections from previous social action courses, as well as readings about social action and various case studies (ACT-UP, NRA, Parkland students, Occupy, BLM, Green New Deal, and more). In addition, you may want to use articles that you know about.
Assignments and Grading Policy
Scott use portfolios (individual grade except for Portfolio 5 on research), short quizzes (individual grade), participation (individual grade), campaign binders (group grade), and a final presentation (combination of group and individual grade).
a) Portfolios
b) Quizzes
c) Campaign Log
d) Participation
e) Campaign Binder and Final Group Presentation
As you will see above, Scott graded each of these separately. However, some faculty have chosen a different way to evaluate. Dr. Sacha Klein, at Michigan State University, evaluates each of the Campaign Tools & Activities, which is 25% of the total grade for the class.
Importantly, Dr. Ellen Reese, Professor Of Society, Environment & Health Equity at UC Riverside, reminds us to tell students that their grade is not dependent on whether they win the campaign, and that their feeling of accomplishment will come in many forms in a social action course:
"We need to remind students that their grades are not dependent on if they win. Celebrating the small wins or the small things moving through the steps — these are huge accomplishments, like coming up with a group name."
Reading Schedule
Below are two documents that will help you to decide on your reading schedule: 7 Weeks and Go! and the Social Action Course Model.
- Seven Weeks and Go! - This documents shows how you might organize the flow of your class to get students to launch their campaign in seven weeks.
- Social Action Course Model — This three-page reference document condenses the essential elements from our model social action course.
Tracking of Student Campaigns
You need to figure out a way to track the students’ Campaign Activities. Below is a worksheet that will help them you and your students manage the campaigns. Please make any edits you think are necessary.
- Student Campaign Implementation Worksheet
Continue to Teaching Style & Norms