Education Commons^™

People, Places And Ideas: A Year-Long Conversation With Rural Alaskan Students, Lauren Mcclanahan, Andrea Gabler

Writing Research Fellows

Research Question: How can developing strong writing prompts elicit strong student responses concerning the evidence of climate change in a rural Alaskan fishing village?

Method: For this case study, my pre-service secondary teacher education students were paired (via e-mail) with middle school students in rural southwestern Alaska. The Alaskan students were from the small fishing village of Eek, which has a population of approximately 280. Through a process of continual refinement, my secondary education students drafted and revised writing prompts that encouraged the Alaskan students to think in terms of how climate change is changing their way of life.