Writing Our Civic Futures (April): Educating Youth for Online Civic and Political Dialogue

April’s Marginal Syllabus reading tackles online civic and political dialogue, conceptualizing five stages of opportunity for young people to engage in online dialogue that builds their capacity for civic voice and influence.

Join us for another engaging month of Writing Our Civic Futures, a collaboration of the National Writing Project and Marginal Syllabus that supports conversations about civic engagement and learning over the course of the 2017-18 academic year. Refer to the syllabus for information on all the annotatable readings, which will go “live” on the first Monday of each month, along with related events hosted by CLTV and others.

This Month’s Topic: Educating Youth for Online Civic and Political Dialogue

This month, we explore ways educators can critically engage youth in online civic and political dialogue in this age of digital media and online communication. Erica Hodgin outlines a framework for supporting meaningful and productive online dialogue in her 2016 article, “Educating Youth for Online Civic and Political Dialogue: A Conceptual Framework for the Digital Age,” which is draws on four high school teachers’ work with their students on a participatory academic platform to conceptualize five stages of opportunity for online civic and political dialogue as a means of building young people’s capacity for civic voice and influence.

Hodgin explores both the expanded opportunities in online spaces as well as some unique challenges for dialogue such as online anonymity and “echo chambers,” and “filter bubbles” as obstacles to students’ access to a range of information. Access the full text, which is openly available online, via Educator Innovator. Using this link will enable you to view annotations (yellow highlights indicate annotations; the annotation tool displays along the right side of your browser) others have added to the text.

Join the Annotated Conversation

We invite you to read “Educating Youth for Online Civic and Political Dialogue” by Erica Hodgin, and annotate the text with your own thoughts and reactions. Annotations are being added via the web annotation platform Hypothes.is. To add your own annotations, as well as to respond to others, sign up for your free account.

For more support, see this annotation tutorial from Marginal Syllabus or this overview of Hypothes.is from KQED Teach.

Share your annotations as you read or any time throughout the month. We also encourage you to use these readings and the opportunity to annotate however it best works for you—organize a study group, bring a class you are teaching, engage as an individual, or connect it to a meeting.

The Extended Conversation/Additional Resources

• Watch an episode of CLTV with the author discussing this reading (episode airs on April 3, 2018)
• Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG)
• Educating for Democracy Deep Dive at Teaching Channel
• Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network
• Youth Voices

You can also refer back to previous annotated articles at the Educator Innovator blog to access additional resources and connect conversations in this series.