Youth Research Plans for S2 High School

Key Goals:

Train students to become youth researchers.
Develop with students an oral history project that tells student stories.
Work with students to use the knowledge produced by themselves and their peers as evidence in research papers and presentations.
Develop an archive that allows other researchers to understand the respective communities and the generation to which S2 students belong.
Work with student scholars to produce academic presentations and publications based on their own research.

Year One: Fall 2024-Spring 2025 Key Deliverables: Students, staff, parents, and additional members of the S2 community will be invited to a panel on youth participatory action research (YPAR) bringing in CUNY students, S2 alumni researchers, S2 freshman researchers and other youth activists to discuss the plans, impact, and findings of their respective YPAR projects. With the support of teachers and staff the entire 9^th grade class will participate in the creation of a high school oral history project. Each 9^th grader will conduct an oral history with a peer at the school. Each 9^th grader will present to their classmates – as an individual or group – on a research question of their own creation, using the testimonies collected by themselves and their peers. A school archive of oral histories will be expanded from the testimonies donated by teachers and staff as well as those 9^th graders willing to submit their testimonies to live in a permanent public-facing school collection titled Voices of the Heights: The Student-Led Community Oral History Archive at School in the Square. Anticipated Student Learning Outcomes: Students will continue developing as researchers as part of a student-led study of their class and their community. They will do so through the recreation of multiple interview scripts on issues impacting their lives and their communities. Students will build their academic writing skills by proposing a research question, creating an outline to organize an essay around a thesis, topic sentences, and quotes from the interviews of their peers, before writing a final research paper based on the knowledge produced by the 9^th grade class through these interviews. Students will continue to acquire professional communication skills by participating both as an interviewer and interviewee for this project. Further, through end-of-the-year presentations, all students will present the findings of their research to their peers and teachers.
August	Thursday, August 8: A workshop will take place with teachers and staff during their orientation to integrate teachers and staff into the project.
Trimester One	Wednesday, September 4: Introduce the project to students. Wednesday, September 18: Students select themes they’d be interested in exploring. Ideas include social-emotional learning, social media, the pressure of being a teenager, immigration, activism, urban life, electoral politics, and world affairs. We will settle on three interview subjects from which the students can choose one for the Fall semester. Wednesday, September 25: Students will design the first oral history script. Wednesday, October 2: Who’s Story Exercise — Go over the plan. Wednesday, October 9: The Danger of a Single Story Wednesday, October 16: How to Oral History Wednesday, October 23: Final Review of Questions Wednesday, October 30: Students, staff, parents, and additional members of the S2 community will be invited to a panel on youth participatory action research (YPAR) bringing in college students, S2 alumni researchers, S2 freshman researchers, and other youth activists to discuss the impact and findings of their respective YPAR projects. We will be presenting past and future work at the S2 celebration to get folks energized for the work, and to invite them in as collaborators, working to address any questions, ideas, or concerns they have. Wednesday, November 6: Students conduct interviews in class. Wednesday, November 13: Students submit their interviews on Dropbox in class. See submission instructions under “How to Oral History” tab.
Trimester Two	Dr. Finesurrey and the alumni team will organize interviews following ethical guidelines created by S2 students in Fall 2024, and, when requested, remove identifying information from transcripts.
Trimester Three	March 2025: Students be presented with the data they produced through their interviews in Trimester One. Following the guidelines laid out in the S2 Oral History Instructions, they will propose a research question, and create an outline to organize an essay around a thesis, topic sentences, and quotes from the interviews of their peers, before writing a final research paper based on the knowledge produced by the 9^th grade class through these interviews. April 2025: Students will work as individuals or in groups, using the primary research they produced, to make an argument about the experience of their peers in this historic moment. May 2025: Students will present their work to their peers and teachers. June 2025: Students will redesign the interview scripts, based on their experience and potential changed social, economic and/or political realities. They will conduct a second interview of their peers.
Summer 2025	Dr. Finesurrey and a research team of interested students team will organize the second peer-to-peer interviews conducted in Spring 2025, following ethical guidelines created by S2 students in Fall 2024, and, when requested, remove identifying information from transcripts. This smaller group of 9th graders who are interested in becoming youth researchers will write an article/create an academic presentation based on their respective experiences and findings.
Year Two: Fall 2025-Spring 2026 NOTE: 9^th Graders will be doing the Fall 2024 Schedule Key Deliverables: The entire 10^th-grade class will participate in the recreation of the oral history project the founded in Fall 2024, this time with a focus outside of the school on elders and community members. Further, students will collectively develop a new set of guiding ethics to guide our research on their elders and community members. Each 10^th grader will conduct two oral histories with elders from their home or community. The school archive of oral histories will be further developed to house the interviews conducted with elders that will join select student testimonies as well as those donated by teachers and staff in the permanent digital collection. A smaller group of student researchers will present their work to select members of the S2 Community and their classmates in anticipation of a presentation to be delivered at the Oral History Association in October 2025. Each 10^th grader will present to their classmates – as an individual or group – on a research question of their own creation, using the testimonies collected by themselves and their peers. The interviews of elders will be added to the S2 oral history archive. A smaller group of student researchers will work on an article for publication and prepare a culminating public-facing performance. Anticipated Student Learning Outcomes: Students will continue developing as researchers as part of a student-led study of their community. They will do so through the recreation of multiple interview scripts on issues impacting their lives and their communities. Questions of ethics and the focus of the project will continue to be refined for the new set of interviews (elders and community members) expanding the experience these youth have in the creation of research projects. Students will refine their editing skills by correcting a transcription of their interview from an AI-generated transcript developed by otter.ai. Students will build their academic writing skills by proposing a research question. They will then create an outline to organize a thesis, topic sentences, and quotes from their interviews and those of their peers. Finally, they will write a final research paper based on the knowledge produced by the 10^th-grade class through two years of interviews. Students will continue to acquire communications skills by conducting an interviewer for this project. Further, through end of the year presentations, all students will present the findings of their research to their peers and teachers. Building on the information and analysis of themselves and their classmates, student researchers will further refine their communication skills by adapting this work to a culminating performance in Summer 2026.
September	Tenth Grade research team will present their presentation to the S2 community.
October	Students will redesign the scripts with the intent of interviewing an elder about their experiences in this historic moment, focusing on topics such as immigration, activism, urban life, electoral politics, world affairs, etc. We will create 2-3 scripts so students can focus their interviews on subjects that interests themselves and the elders they are interviewing. 10^th grade researchers will present at the Oral History Association – the largest oral history conference in the U.S.
November	Students will review how to conduct oral histories. We will create common ethics and decide collectively how these interviews will be framed. Further, we will discuss consent forms as all, or almost all of these interviews will be housed in the S2 oral history digital archive.
December	Students will conduct an interview with their chosen elder.
January	Students will redesign the scripts based on their experience and the potentially changed social, political, and economic context.
February	Students will conduct an interview with an elder in their community. Students will then edit a transcription of these interviews produced by otter.ai.
March	Finesurrey and alumni team will organize interviews onto google spreadsheets based on rules devised by the students.
April	Students will each propose a research question. They will then create an outline organized around a thesis, topic sentences and quotes from their interviews and those of their peers. Finally, they will write a research paper based on the knowledge their class produced over the past two years.
May	Building on their research papers, students will work as individuals or in groups, using the primary research they produced to make and arguement about the experience of their community in this historic moment.
June	Students will present their work to their peers and teachers.
July	A smaller group of 10th grade researchers will write an article/create an academic presentation based on their experience. The 10^th grade research team will create a culminating performance intended to reach a wide audience.

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