Spanish class debate inquiry project

Driving Question: "Should we make English the national language of the U.S.?"

Students will do research on the argument of their side before the debate. Since students are residents of this country, they would be affected by this change. Students must strongly defend their answer to this question especially because the controversy is emotionally charged. The first part of the activity includes a presentation so each side can understand a little of the background of the other side. Students will evaluate and analyze their peers by asking questions so they must always be prepared to respond. The driving question also offers many underlying questions that the students must think about. Including: “Do people alienate themselves when they refuse to learn English in the US?”, “Is learning English actually necessary to survive in this country?”, “How might not knowing the commonly used language in your country of residence disable you from participating in the government as a citizen?” There is already much debate to this question so as a class we will weigh the pros and cons of each side to try to come to some kind of consensus or important take-aways.

Grabber: Article retrieved from https://newsela.com/articles/english-laws/id/4807/

This article explains how different states have already started to deal with non-English speakers in the political scene, where they only allow political documents to be written in English. This is a high emotion situation because some people may feel disenfranchised if official documents are only allowed in English. Students may discuss the article in groups after reading it and may ask questions like "Is this really a good idea if we want people to learn English? What are some alternatives to this route?"

The grabber would be used right at the introduction of the lesson for the debate. The grabber is meant to get students thinking about some right and wrong ways that the US deals with non-English native speakers and whether it is truly necessary for them to learn English in our country.

Culminating activity: Class Debate and mini presentations

Students will be divided into two groups to collaborate and research (it is recommended for the teacher to supplement articles and websites for student research) and briefly present (2-3 min) material based on which side of the argument they are assigned, because an important part of having a good debate is to prepare well. Rubric for the presentations:

The debate should have different platforms (points in their argument) regarding different reasons why they think English should or shouldn’t be our national language. Once each side presents their evidence, we will have a class debate where the purpose is to come to a conclusion as a class, what would be the best answer to the DQ. Rubric for the debate: