David, I absolutely agree. The four projects outlined above do not cover social justice coursework or context, but helping students discover their own awareness of injustices for different social identity groups is critical to the success of each project. I teach an 8th grade social justice course which embeds these four projects throughout the year. What's great about this is that my students have the historical content knowledge, experience with socio-economic, gender, sexual, religious, and racial injustice, as well as the desire to want to learn more and take action. David, feel free to check out my website http://www.teachsocialjustice.com to browse through some of the course content and resources.

Lori Corcoran Hi Lori, I would love to collaborate. Feel free to email me. Gerald.dessus@masterycharter.org

Lore, I am truly inspired by the community engagement work your students were able to accomplish!

Our goal this year is for our students at Shoemaker to speak and think critically about social justice issues from a historical perspective, such as homelessness, so that they can actually create change. So our 8th graders are moving into phase 2, research an issue that is meaningful to them. From January - March they will begin coalescing around larger, common issues, and from March to June they will create and lead action plans around the issue that chose.

I would love to collaborate in any way possible, even if there's a way we could get some of your students over to Shoe to share their amazing experience. I think it would be very enlightening for our students.