Inquiry Based Learning in ELA or History: Fun & Engaging Project

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Have you been wanting to try to incorporate inquiry based learning in your English or Social studies class? Hoping to increase engagement & buy-in from students? This Inquiry based learning project unit changed my school year! It’s become my absolute favorite unit, and my students agree!

What is inquiry based learning? Why should I try it?

A learning method that encourages real-world connections and critical thinking to engage students. It promotes critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, communication, self-efficacy, advocacy, & research skills. It’s also just plain FUN!

What does inquiry based learning look like in an ELA or history class?

How: A Project-based unit. Here’s the one I do every year with my 9th grade ELA class, it usually takes us about 6 weeks:

Prompt: How can your words inspire change? Students come up with their own topic – a solution they can solve using their words. They have to propose their topic with you so you can confirm that it will work for the process. 

I usually do this towards the end of my unit on the Literature of the Civil Rights movement. At this point, we have studied various speakers and writers who have used their words to inspire change. However, it can work on it’s own in any humanities based class. 

After I introduce the prompt, I introduce their Inquiry Notebooks. I’ve done this digitally or in print in the past. One of the key aspects of inquiry based learning is to support the learning & process over the final product.

Each day, I have a prompt for them to track their planning, learning, research, etc in their notebook.Some of the prompts offer reflection points to encourage and support the iteration of their ideas. As they learn, they should be adjusting and changing & the notebook offers opportunities to demonstrate growth.

Inquiry Based Learning Project Phases:

1. Brainstorm: Evaluate the prompt and get out as many ideas as you can!  
2. Audience & Genre: Who is your specific audience? What is the best means to reach them? (I let students create PSAs, infographics, videos, songs, poems, etc.
3. Topic Proposal: Written out and then discussed in a meeting with Teacher
4. Research: What has been done? What information is needed to convince audience? (This part takes several days) 
5. Work time: developing their “product,” incorporating rhetorical appeals, devices, etc. (again, I teach English and this project comes after our unit on argument so it’s a great opportunity for them to implement these tools)  
6. Reflections, continuing to track work and learning, rough draft 
7. Counter argument: review & guide students through how to acknowledge and respond to opposing viewpoints
8. Presenting to adults: Okay this is a little unique but it’s one of my favorite parts. I make my students present their projects and learning process to at least 2 adults outside of the school day.
   1. WHAT is this all about?! I know i’m not an expert on the topics, nor is it good for students to only hear my feedback. I require that only 1 adult can be related (and they don’t have to do a relative at all). This can be daunting so I send out a survey to all the adults on my campus for their availability. Then students can sign up to present to these adults. It’s AMAZING to see the students share with excitement and get awesome feedback. I’ve even had students present to school board members and the superintendent!
9. Rubric self evaluation: Students self-assess their progress against the rubric. They create a to do list for remaining tasks towards the last 1/4 of the project.
10. Presentation day: Students present their project and learning process. They complete self and peer evaluations while I use a rubric to evaluate their work.
11. Final Reflection on process and product 

Your role as the teacher:

• Facilitate! Work alongside students as they develop their projects and solve problems that come up. 
• Encourage! Your students are interested in something, even the ones that don’t seem like it- you get an awesome opportunity to encourage them in developing their voice to inspire change!
• Optional: complete the process for your own topic! I’ve done this about every other time I’ve implemented this assignment and it’s always been fun! I love getting to model 
• Involve: This works well when you involve others – invite staff, family, or community members to be part of the project!

You can do all of this on your own OR you can check out the resource I created that includes everything I’ve mentioned and more (like editable slide decks, lesson plans & templates). You can purchase it here