Civil & Human Rights IDU: DAY THREE

IDU overview, Day One and Day Two.
We started off in the theatre space, reflecting on the day before and answering questions, then students spent the next four hours working in their groups, to complete their script, bibliography, presentation and to rehearse! We had split the students up into different locations, with different teachers supervising....but there was very little for us to do! The students were engaged and focussed. It was lovely to walk around and hear their ideas and see the topics they had chosen. Topics included;  freedom from torture, No unjust detention, imprisonment or exile, religious freedom, gun laws, immigration, freedom of the press, child slavery, "take a knee", abortion, death penalty, domestic abuse and more.

In the afternoon students met back in our theatre space and performed! We were blown away with the high quality work students produced in such a short time! At the end we did a feedback session, and some of the students said they wish it had a bigger audience - I asked them if I could share their videos online, and they agreed....so, here are a selection 

Grading - As it was the end of the year (the students had a half day the next day only) and grading had been one of the things which put teachers off doing IDUs the most, we made it as simple as possible! During, or after each performance, teachers could fill in a Google Form, which would ask for a 1-8 grade for Criterion B and C,  and also had space for comments. If you are curious, here is a copy of the form. I assigned different teachers, different groups, but said if they wanted to add additional feedback for a group they were not assigned they could. After school I created a doc for each group, which had a link to the video of their performance, as well and the grades and comments. I put in all the number grades, then made a best fit judgement: We kept it casual and informal, as this is our pilot group. Next year grades and comments will be on ManageBac, and they will get an IDU grade(s) on their report card at the end of the year.
Example:

At the end of the day we were able to reflect with the students. They talked about the IDU being very valuable, challenging and fun, and also gave us some tips for feedback next year. I am moving to a new school next year, so someone else will take over as the lead on this, but they should not be too much to tweak. Some main ideas: Move the IDU between semester two and three and to narrow down the topic, for example tell students they need to talk about human rights violations that many people do not know about, or maybe unheard perspectives. I am sad to not be apart of this next year, as it was so much fun, but know it will continue growing and evolving wonderfully!