In explaining the term "advocacy" to my students, I rephrased advocacy as "standing up" for oneself or another being. Advocating for oneself is an important personal and IEP goal for several of my students. Through daily modeling and practice, my students have begun to be able to advocate for themselves across school settings. Yet, I found my students were struggling with understanding that they can have an impact on more than just themselves. Therefore, I created a unit plan to introduce my students to endangered animals. Through this unit plan, students learned about polar bears, arctic foxes, and penguins, as well as injustices these animals each experience in the world. To conclude each section of the unit plan, my students each wrote a letter in advocacy of these animals.

 

In writing these letters, my students were able to gain confidence in their own abilities to advocate for others. The majority of my students receive speech and language therapy and have difficulty advocating for themselves in their general education classrooms. Underlying the struggle with self-advocacy is my students' need to strengthen their ability to speak clearly and audibly. By having my students practice advocating for individuals that cannot speak our language - animals - my hope was that my students would gain confidence in their voices and actions.