From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning in All Content Areas

“Students learn to be active and responsible citizens by actually seeking to promote change, rather than just being―supposedly―prepared to be leaders in the future.” ―Steven Zemelman

What really matters to your students? The issues in front of them at school and in life.

When students inquire into those issues and know that their arguments will be read with a skeptical eye next week by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they’re eager to research and find relevant information in nonfiction texts to bolster their claims. They become committed to write, revise, edit, and correct their grammar. They want to think broadly about what reasoning will be effective with their audience.

Want that kind of engagement in your classroom? Whether you teach English, social studies, science, or math, From Inquiry to Action will show you how step-by-step. Its projects for civic-engagement help kids become not only college and career ready but citizen ready. And not ready someday, but right now!

Research, argument, speaking and listening, close reading, writing for real audiences and purposes, and collaboration? It’s all here, growing through projects that give students choice, ownership over their learning, incredible motivation, and a sense of voice and power that only comes from focusing on and applying their learning to real-world situations.

“It’s not enough to just talk about change, or practice in mock legislatures,” writes Steve Zemelman. “When students see adults actually listening to them with respect, that is when they begin to realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world.” Read From Inquiry to Action and find practical guidance that leads students to the heights you dream for them. After all, we all want our students to grow as engaged, thoughtful citizens in our communities.

Steve blogs frequently about the ideas in From Inquiry to Action and about how educators around the US are applying them at his Civic Action in Schools blog.

Educator, researcher, writer, and teacher, Sonia Nieto is Professor Emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In her career, she has taught students from elementary school through doctoral studies and her research has focused on multicultural education, teacher education, and the education of Latinos, immigrants, and other students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. With many journal articles, book chapters, and several books to her credit, she has received numerous awards for her scholarship, teaching, and advocacy, including four honorary doctorates. She was selected as a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and as a Laureate for Kappa Delta Pi in 2011, and in 2012 she served as the Wits-Claude Distinguished Scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.