Social issues in Sabah (reading)

*Based on Manual Kesedaran Sivik Sekolah Menengah - Tajuk: Keamanan sejagat

Learning standard:

Reading 3.1.2 Understand specific details and information in extended texts on a wide range of familiar topics

Reading 3.2.1 Read a variety of suitable print and digital texts to investigate and analyze national issues

Objectives:

 

1. Students will be able to understand and analyze a text about social justice issues in Sabah.

2. Students will be able to identify the headline for the articles.

3. Students will be able to express their opinions on social justice issues based on the Visible Thinking Routine.

Materials: Articles about social justice in Sabah, big white paper, markers

Warm-Up:

1. Review key vocabulary related to social justice (e.g. equality, fairness, rights). Ask students to provide their own examples of these concepts.

2. Ask students if they have heard of any current social justice issues or movements. If so, discuss briefly. If not, provide some examples and ask for their reactions.

Pre-Reading:

1. Divide students into groups of 4 or 5. 

2. Distribute articles to every group - different article for different group. 

3. Give a brief overview of the text, including the main topic and any relevant background information.

While Reading:

1. Inform students that they're going to read the article and discuss a come up with a suitable header for the article as creative as possible. The title can be in 5-8 words. 

2. Teacher calls up one student to come up to the from each group to write their group's title.

3. Discuss the suitability of the title.

After Reading:

1. Have the students reread the article given to them.

2. Based on the article, use this type of 'Visible Thinking Routines' to the students:

CONNECT: How are the ideas and information presented CONNECTED to what you already

knew?

EXTEND: What new ideas did you get that EXTENDED or pushed your thinking in new

directions?

CHALLENGE: What is still CHALLENGING or confusing for you to get your mind around? What questions, wonderings or puzzles do you now have?

3. Provide a big white paper to them and have them write their discussion on it. 

4. Regroup the students so that every member can share the assigned issues for their groups. 

Prompts: 

a) What is the issue?

b) How it happened?

c) What questions regarding the issue left unanswered?

5. Rotate the big white paper to every group and have the students to read them. 

Wrap up:

1. Ask the students to reflect on their own attitudes and actions related to social justice and discuss ways they can make a positive impact in their own community.

Reflection: The 'challenge' part is the most difficult part for students to think about. This difficulty is an opportunity for them to think outside of what's written in the text, which enables them to let them explore more about the issue at hand. When I asked my students about the importance of us to know about issues in Sabah, one of them said 'To make improvements for Sabah and also to make Sabah be on par with other states in Malaysia' which is exactly the kind of thinking that I expect them to have upon learning about the issues.

Below are students' work based on the 'Connect, Extend, Challenge' visible thinking routines.