Today's writing assignment - Defend the KKK

[packman]

Teacher puts her toe in the hot pot when assigning her 7th grade (charter school) students to write a persuasive paper defending the KKK.

"Persuasive writing is a skill that must be honed and schools have done an excellent job in many parts of the country to teach kids how to effectively perfect this type of communication. From arguing about the benefits of free Wi-Fi to death penalty debates, the topics are endless and sometimes heated. But a teacher in Wisconsin took persuasive writing to a whole new, and offensive, level."

Tomorrow's assignment - Trump is really going to make America great again

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/12/wi-teacher-tells-class-write-essay

[MineralMan]

1. I wrote an essay on the KKK in my sophomore English class

in high school. It was not a defense of that group, however, but covered its actions in California in the early 20th century. It took some research, which I did in bound copies of the Los Angeles Times at my local library. I had only recently become really aware of civil rights issues. My small rural town in California hadn't exposed me to much, really, but I was seeing stories in the newspaper about civil rights issues in other places and that led me to do some digging.

My teacher was surprised at the topic, but gave me an A and said I had done a good job on it.

[pscot]

2. they change their sheets weekly

[pipi_k]

3. While I can't

right off the top of my head find anything positive to say about the KKK, I do think it's important to be able to argue points from both sides.

Doing that, IMO, gives people a chance to see that not everything is as black or white as they think. Lots of issues have gray areas.

[canetoad]

4. Agree

When I read this article yesterday I thought back to my own years at high school at about the same age. The concept of debating was introduced to us and even though we may or may not have agreed with the topic, the point was to construct and defend a logical argument supporting our assertion.

I despise everything the KKK stands for, but this excercise is an excellent one for organising thoughts and, as you say, learning not to see everything in black and white.

[JustinL]

6. but the KKK is an issue with no gray areas, and therefore inappropriate for the assignment

The teacher could have chosen one of the innumerable issues that actually does have gray areas, like the minimum wage, or the Electoral College, and then required each student to argue both sides.

[KamaAina]

5. The KKK will make a fascinating reality show.

The end.

[LWolf]

7. My 6th, 7th, and 8th graders

do a great deal of argumentative writing...it's a big focus of the CCSS. They also do a great deal of informal debate, and some of them do formal debate as well. They learn how to present a claim, how to support and defend it with evidence, and how to address counter claims.

They also learn to do so from any side of an argument, not just their own pov.

If I were to assign them this topic, they're jaws would be on the floor and they'd be looking up at the date to be sure it wasn't April 1st.

While I think it's fine to assign something controversial that they have to work to defend, they aren't going to learn to defend hate in my class.

As for tomorrow's assignment? We covered this by accident awhile back. I had a small group discussing a novel about the holocaust; they each had to bring something different to the discussion, and they'd done background research before reading the novel. The discussion was an energetic debate; my job was simply to direct traffic and make sure everybody got a turn to be heard. The rest of the class found the discussion so engaging that they simply quit doing their other work, turned around, and observed...silently, so that I wouldn't send them back to work.

At one point, one of group exclaimed, "I don't understand why all those Germans just let him come to power, just let him do all those things." Another stepped into explain, "Well, they were struggling; their economy was failing, they were worried about supporting their families, and they really thought he was going to make Germany great again." The speaker came to a dead stop; nobody breathed. Somebody quietly said, "Right." I could hear the exhales around the room; heads dropped, and everyone went soberly back to work.