The Activist Learner

This dynamic book explores a variety of ways teachers can integrate service learning to enliven their classroom, meet the unique developmental needs of their students, and satisfy the next generation of standards and assessments. The authors demonstrate how inquiry-based teaching with service learning outcomes cultivates, requires, and rewards literacy, as well as important skills like perspective taking and compassion. Through the pursuit of service learning projects, students develop and apply literacy and disciplinary knowledge, experience real-world implications, and learn to think in more connected ways. At the same time, students acquire literacies essential for creating a culture of civic engagement and for mastering the Common Core.

A powerful blend of practical, theoretical, and inspirational, The Activ(ist) Learner:
Provides examples that combine inquiry and service learning to help students develop and apply literacy and disciplinary knowledge.Helps teachers move from informational teaching to sociocultural apprenticeship teaching.Describes a way of teaching that develops students’ intrapersonal and interpersonal skills.Includes templates for conducting inquiry units and charts with CCSS connections.
“Our students are indeed the future trustees of our societies, so why not engage them early on in positive activism? This book, a collaborative conversation that speaks to the challenge and the opportunity that our classrooms provide us, offers an engaging look at how a shift in thinking can positively impact our future.”
—Clifton L. Taulbert, lecturer and author of Eight Habits of the Heart

“In an era where everyone has an opinion about education, Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry take us back to the root of the word educate: to nurture and to lead forth. The Activ(ist) Learner reminds us that service learning allows teachers and students to collaborate through inquiry to ask deep, substantive questions, and then take actionable steps to make a difference in their schools, communities, and the world. If you are truly interested in education—nurturing and leading—then The Activ(ist) Learner will help you begin a transformative journey.”
—Troy Hicks, Central Michigan University