# data[].attributes.body
Reading the textbook was also a tool our teacher used in order to present material and give an overview of what would be discussed in class. Reading the textbook has always been challenging for me, that is why I enjoy the other interactive tools to help enrich my learning :)))

# data[].attributes.body
Menti is an interactive tool, similar to kahoot. Above is an example I made, but it similar to the questions that Sam would ask from our class.

# data[].attributes.body
Sam used an abundance of videos to go into further detail of important topics. This tool helped me so much, as I am a visual learner!

# data[].attributes.body
Although Sam facilitated many group discussions, she also mixed in lectures. During lectures she presented material and went into detail about important topics

# data[].attributes.body
Sam promotes small groups discussions and class discussions. Sam asked a lot of questions throughout class which allowed for a very interactive discussion.

# data[].attributes.body
This is my major btw :)

# data[].attributes.body
This was a Podcast I was able to find from my actual class. Sam used podcasts frequently to further present material

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Desiree: I wanna be in movies. I wanna act. You ever watch teen movies, what's that? mean girls, mean girls. I wanna be like one of those. YOUTUBE TRAILER: Get in loser... we're going shopping.
Rodriguez: Desiree is seventeen. And what she craves most is the carefree life of a spoiled teenager:
Youtube trailer: Calculus class ... You want to experience that even if it's just in a movie. Desiree: Even if it's just in a movie. Yeah if I could just act it out and pretend it's happening and I could watch myself over and over again. I'm fine with that.
Yes, material things are part of the appeal-nice car, nice house, good clothes. But it goes deeper than that:
Desiree: Like the schools is just so nice. They got everything they want in they school.
Desiree wants the basics: a decent school, a home, friends, and maybe most of all, a nurturing mother....
Desiree: And they could bring home company and they mom will cook for their company, cook for them, wash the dishes, wash their clothes, get they clothes out like I would want something like that. (laugh) Have you ever had any of that? No, never did I want something like that though.
What Desiree has is something much different-a group home in the Bronx, the last stop on the 2 train......where she lives with 11 other girls.
Let me just sign this book really quickly....
The group home is two stories with a pitched roof and a small balcony. From the outside, it looks like a large family lives here. From the inside, the living room feels more like a waiting room...
Desiree: It's a 24 hour facility so somebody comes in like 3 shifts.
Desiree's lived here since last July.
So this is the place? Desiree: Yes.
It's her latest placement. She's moved more than 20 times since she was 10.
Desiree: I wouldn't call it a home... I would call it... it's like very independent... it's not basically for me...
I've been getting to know Desiree for 7 month..that's not her real name. We gave her a pseudonym because she's young and we wanted to protect her identity.
Desiree: Wanna walk? wanna take a walk? ... No she can't take a walk. She gotta walk out the door. Desiree: I'm talking about up the block.... oh ok. Desiree: How long you been doing this for? Rodriguez: A long time... Desiree: a long time...?
For nearly half her life, Desiree's been considered a foster kid and a juvenile delinquent. Both systems have run her life. She has no trust in either and feels wronged by both.
Desiree: I wanna write a letter to the commissioner...
The system didn't work for her and she says it doesn't work for most kids but they're too scared to speak up:
Rodriguez: And you're not? No I'm not scared because if Martin Luther King stood in front of that whole crowd ... did a speech on black people and tried to help segregation and stuff, you think I'm really gonna be scared to try to help people out that don't have a voice for theyselves.... ___________________________________________________
KAI: And Desiree will get a chance to talk to city commissioners. She is smart, expressive, and painfully honest about her life...and she's been chosen to tell her story to a task force trying to change the way the juvenile justice system in New York City treats girls.

I'm Kai Wright and you're listening to Caught.

Girls can be an enigma for policy-makers. That's because research typically focuses on boys since they dominate the system.

But studies that do exist, have found that within the juvenile justice system, girls experience higher rates of trauma than boys-especially sexual trauma. Policy experts call this the sexual abuse to prison pipeline and they say it's why incarcerating a young girl perpetuates more negative behavior and makes it hard to exit the system.

WNYC REPORTER CINDY RODRIGUEZ TAKES IT FROM HERE:

Rodriguez: When we talk about the "system", we're talking about a lot of different players. There's caseworkers, group homes, probation officers, police, judges, psychiatrists....
Desiree: Everytime I go to a psychiatrist I got a different diagnose.... Zimmerman: but you gotta keep it real. I don't know if you need to be on medication or not. I'm not a doctor. Desiree: I don't...
That's Brian Zimmerman. He's what's called an 18B...a private attorney the state pays to represent indigent clients...like a public defender...only in family court. He and Desiree are talking after a check-in with her judge last fall:
Desiree: Zimmerman: you've lasted pretty long without a real staff altercation so that actually, I'm proud of you for the fact that you're holding that part together.. I still feel like I could do better but right now I feel like I'm doing very good... Zimmerman: Desiree: Uh hum. But I think you shouldn't fool yourself about the connection about your past and why you feel the way you do sometimes. Desiree: The first month was fine like she was taking her meds. She was treating me like a daughter. It was fine. She wasn't even hitting me or nothing.
Rodriguez: Brian's seen Desiree go from a tiny 10-year-old to a 5'9 young woman. She probably has four inches on him. Where she's quick and impulsive..he's slow and deliberate.
DESIREE: And like I had a busted eye and stuff
Desiree's past starts like this. When she was four-months-old, her mom stabbed her father to death and was sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter. Desiree and her sister were sent to live with relatives in Rochester, New York. But eventually their mom got them back:
Desiree: Most of the kids that were in Geller House with me... They had a lot of clothes. They had people that was always calling them, like their family making sure they ok and things. And I wanted all that but I couldn't have it.
But that changed and Desiree says it was like her mom needed an excuse to, " beast out". In other words, release a lot of pent up anger. SHE ENDED UP WITH CUTS AND BRUISES.

A teacher called Child services AND WHAT LANDED HER and her sister in foster care...AT GELLER HOUSE,
Desiree: And then we used to get in trouble in the morning time when they wake us up.
Geller House is a facility for adolescents with serious emotional problems. Desiree and her sister were 10 and 11 and were young compared to everyone else.
Desiree: I really couldn't sleep and I would tell them that I would tell the psychiatrist I really cannot sleep without my sister... Cuz like I have to play with her ear. I was still like a big behind baby.
They stuck together, and when it was time to go to sleep, Desiree would sneak into her sister's bed.
Desiree: ...when I was first having my episode, my tantrums, they was coming, 'oh she's a little girl just talk to her', and they would talk to me and then like as I would do it consistently it's like, 'oh no, she's too bad; she's doing too much, she needs counseling, she needs this'.
It was one of the rare times she would act like a little girl.
Desiree: So they put me on medication thinking that was gonna help. But I was still being bad and stuff so they just end up hospitalizing me, putting me in the hospital just because every program I went to they didn't want me the would kick me out. Rodriguez: How was the hospital experience for you? It was sad. It was very sad. It was very depressing because it was like look at me like as I am your daughter. Yes, I am a little girl...
Desiree felt alone and she started to have angry outbursts to get noticed
Desiree: I'm not gonna blame like, I'm not gonna put my trauma like to like be like, 'oh that's an excuse to be bad or whatever'. But like I've been through things. I just want attention. I just want somebody to love me. I don't care if it's like, for a second. So like, that's basically yeah."
She got the desperately needed attention but not the kind she was hoping for.
Desiree: I threw all the books off the library shelf and I flipped over the air hockey table....We were all just like you know little kids silly moments but you know we took it out of hand. We wanted to be cool. We wanted to be older cuz me my friend and my sister, we was the youngest so we wanted to be older; we wanted to be cool so we decided oh, if we get arrested we older, we did something, we grown...
Desiree talks fast. I asked her to explain. It turns out what she wanted was something simple and not so simple....she wanted someone to reassure her and give her hope that things would get better. But she wanted it to come from someone who loved her UNCONDITIONALLY:
Rodriguez: Did a police officer actually come in and put handcuffs on you? Desiree: No we ran... and they finally caught us and then they put us in handcuffs and we went down to the precinct. We got arrested. We went to juvenile justice cuz our age. Rodriguez: And you were like a little girl? 10 is really young. Desiree: Yeah really little. Rodriguez: And how did that feel to have handcuffs on you? Desiree: Once again it felt like I'm older like again... I'm in handcuffs. You can't tell me I'm not grown cuz I'm in handcuffs. Only grown people go in handcuffs cuz you don't see no little kids going in handcuffs.... only grown people so we felt like, excuse my language, that we was the shit.
This need for attention is about to expose Desiree to the police. One day, DESIREE, her sister and a friend tore apart the Geller House library.

She says the home called the police and just like that they went from being seen as little girls recovering from trauma to juvenile delinquents who destroyed property:
Rodriguez: How many foster moms have you had? Desiree: I can't even count...The ones that I can think of ...1,2,3... five that I can count but I know I had more than that...
Rodriguez: Since that day at Geller House, Desiree says she's been arrested more than 20 times. But those arrests no longer make her feel strong...they do the opposite....they make her feel constrained, powerless and misunderstood...The trajectory from the foster care system to the juvenile justice system is very common. Researchers working with the city found more than half the girls who get arrested have an open child welfare case...that means one of their parents has been accused of abusing or neglecting them....

One system feeds the other. For Desiree, being in both means she's moved around a lot.... There's been detention centers, mental health treatment centers, group homes, foster homes...

And in each setting she's on the defensive. Desiree's gained a reputation as a "don't mess with me," kind of girl. BUT she's delicate. And that makes her vulnerable in a way that may be hard to see.
Desiree: so now what am I getting you? A double cheeseburger and what else? A McChicken.
In her book, Girls Like Us, Rachel Lloyd, whose an activist, wrote this line about girls that have been sexually exploited. It goes something like this: "Girls weren't drug addicted, they were love addicted and that I'll learn is far harder to treat."

Desiree does long for love. And that craving makes her a target:
DESIREE: She said, 'here's a way you can go on a date with a man... and get some money.
I didn't know Desiree had been sexually exploited until SHE TOLD ME ABOUT IT... SITTING IN A MCDONALD'S...
Desiree: all these guys, white men, african, spanish all different races probably like 60 years old, 50 years old, forty, thirty ...older guys. Rodriguez: Wow. And you would go to their house. Desiree: Uh huh.
A girl she met in one of the facilities she was placed in introduced her to a young man who was 19 at the time. She considers him a friend.
Desiree: I would have to be under drugs to do it cuz like I can't do it sober cuz like yo, what am I really doing? So I would get high or I would get drunk. And I would do it and then after I come off the drugs and stuff, I'd be like what did I really do. Oh I'm about to stop doing this.
He took provocative pictures of her and MADE an ad on Backpage which he paid for in bitcoin. Desiree says her ad got a lot of attention. SHE WAS 13 YEARS OLD.:
Desiree: I would feel nasty like yo why am I doing this like what made me in my mind do this?...Like how can I say I used to have like nightmares. I used to be mad at myself. I used to be angry because it's like yo, 'nobody know what I have to do on a regular daily basis just to get money.'
Just last year a senate subcommittee accused Backpage of facilitating sex trafficking. And a source told me when girls run away from a juvenile detention facility, one of the places caseworkers look, is Backpage. Having sex with grown men was hard for Desiree:
Desiree: Like when I first started doing it, 'I was like alright I can stop.' but then as I start getting into it and more money starts coming in it was like yo, this is addictive... so it's hard to get.... Once you in it it's hard to get out.
It became a cycle. She felt bad about herself because she was doing it and she was doing it because she felt bad about herself:
Desiree: Yeah I almost got kidnapped. Yeah. Rodriguez: What do you mean? Desiree: I had went on a date with a guy whatever. Come to find out he was a pimp.
The Administration for Children's Services found out she was being sex trafficked and put her in different programs... but she says nobody could convince her to stop:
Desiree: And then as soon as I said something's not right to turn back around...he pushed me. He pushed me on the bed. Mind you, it was just a mattress on the floor. No furniture, no TV, no refrigerator no food in the house just an empty house. Rodriguez: Wow. Desiree: And he was like, oh you're not going nowhere.
Girls and boys under 18 are no longer prosecuted in New York for prostitution. They are supposed to be seen as victims... BUT ATTORNEYS SAY SOMETIMES if girls have nowhere else to go...JUDGES put them IN DETENTION FOR SMALL INFRACTIONS TO KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THEIR PIMPS.
Desiree: You would've thought it was just him and me in the house. So like they hold a gun to my head like if you scream or do anything I'm gonna shoot you so I'm not gonna hold you I started crying like yo, what do you want, do you want money. I'm throwing them money.... you could have whatever you want.
That never happened to Desiree. But prostitution did expose her to a lot of danger:
Desiree: Cuz I had a dress on whatever so he like tried to rape me or whatever ...but he didn't get a chance but then the guy he felt bad for me cuz I was crying...
It's an intense conversation to have at a McDonald's. She got a bad feeling about the guy the moment she stepped in his house:
Desiree: I'm not going to go through with it. He got my whole ID. He has my information. What am I gonna do? Oh I could put you in protective custody. No ou can't do that because you can't. What you going to do with me in protective custody. I'm not going through with nothing.
She says HE WANTED TO MAKE HER WORK FOR HIM IN FLORIDA...... He screamed in her face. She tried to act like she wasn't scared until several other men came out of nowhere.
Desiree: I didn't call the cops I just came to the hospital just to get tested and to get medicines because I don't know what he had or anything like that. Rodriguez: Right. Right. Wow that is really scary. I'm so sorry that you went through that. Desiree: It's okay. Rodriguez: I think most people would be pretty destroyed by that. I've been through worse things, worse things.
But then one guy felt bad and yelled at the others to let her go. He opened the door and she took off running down the stairs and down the block shaken and terrified...but with the wherewithal to take care of herself and go to the hospital

The police got called and they tried to convince her to cooperate with an investigation:

Desiree was scared but she also has no trust in public system especially the police.
ZIMMERMAN: Well I think the judge was mostly concerned with what I told you.
When we come back, Desiree finds ways to speak out for change to the system.
Zimmerman: And she really, she was like waking up on the subway drunk. She knows about that you know they're going to report that....
KAI: WHEN WE LAST HEARD FROM DESIREE SHE WAS TELLING US A TERRIFYING STORY ABOUT NEARLY BEING KIDNAPPED AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTED BY A MAN SHE SAYS WAS A PIMP WHO WAS TRYING TO FORCE HER TO WORK FOR HIM.
Zimmerman:..she's worried ...that you're using substances to deal with the traumas and the pain, ok. Remember I told you that's how it would be thought of.
Rodriguez: Desiree brushes off the experience like she's had to brush off other sexual abuse in her past. But sexual trauma cuts deep. There is an impact. And it comes out when she punches, kicks and bites the staff who try to restrain her. And in the angry fights, she has with other girls and adults who try to control her. And in the way she abuses drugs and alcohol. These private details of her life all get exposed back in family court....
Zimmerman: I know. And that's exactly the point... That's how you get your minds off things. It's because you're not addressing the things you need to address.
Brian's sitting on a bench inside Brooklyn family court talking to Desiree on his cell phone.
Zimmerman: It's not your parent but...You know. It's just like me...You're stuck with me as kind of a parent. You have to know... that I'm not going to say it's okay. Right? Moderation. You know what moderation means...It means don't too much to the point where you're not controlling yourself. That's not good. It's when bad things can happen.
Weeks earlier, police found her on a subway train, so DRUNK she had to be hospitalized. It's troubling behavior and there's no parent to decide what to do. Brian and her judge, Amanda White will handle it. She's been overseeing Desiree's case since 2015.

Desiree, on the other end of the line, explains how alcohol helps her forget about things.

The judge wants Desiree in therapy. Desiree thinks therapy is useless. Brian tells her Judge White is concerned
Desiree: Was it that serious? Even if she started it you don't know what she's going through outside of here...You don't...Just like she don't know what I'm going through
Rodriguez: This is the system as parent. JUDGE WHITE is the top judge in Brooklyn family court... And she's held dozens of hearings about Desiree. There was a period when Desiree kept getting arrested...and the system was about to send her upstate to the most restrictive detention center for juveniles. It houses kids charged with felonies. Desiree never committed a felony. but here's what she did do:

In 2016, she was arrested for allegedly throwing a candle and spitting on a worker at a group home. She was sent to a juvenile detention facility where she got arrested four times in about a month...for biting, pushing, and slapping workers...Her charges---assault, menacing, harassment
Zimmerman: You heard what she said...
Lashing out at workers and at other girls, kept happening. Desiree says in at least one case, she was attacked by other kids and had to defend herself. After a fight, she says she would feel regret:
Zimmerman: That's not the way they should be handling it.. DESIREE: Just for not waking up that's so dumb. So that makes me going to get even more upset because now you're calling the police. I didn't even wake up yet. . . Zimmerman: I know you haven't put on your makeup yet to be seen by the police. But that's. (LAUGHING)
Brian didn't want Desiree to go upstate...and thought that would only make things worse. So he argued to Judge White -- all Desiree's arrests were for behavior INSIDE detention facilities where being physically restrained set her off. He said it wasn't like she was out on the streets robbing and assaulting people.
Zimmerman: No, it's not right because someone like you who doesn't do well with authority who's with the trauma stuff, like might react. You don't want to catch ... Desiree: Another charge Zimmerman: Another charge. Zimmerman: because you're... Desiree: I already got too many... Zimmerman: you're gonna be upset. . . That's one of the reasons I ask those questions because... it bothers me. That they would put you in that position cuz this has always been a problem ...they put you in this position... Desiree: exactly. Desiree: That doesn't excuse you from reacting...you have to keep controlling yourself because you know there's high stakes if you don't.
He asked that she be removed from the juvenile justice system and placed back in the child welfare system...meaning, treat her like an abused child again-INSTEAD OF A DELINQUENT. Judge White agreed, which is why DESIREE is living in a group home today.
Rodriguez: How was Vera today? Desiree: Um, Vera was. . it was good. At first I really wasn't in the mood to come. They actually got me working as a fellowship there. So now they gonna set me up with an email, a desk... so now I'm gonna officially be working at Vera instead of working like ...not just come in to help with like end girl's incarceration.... Rodriguez: that's pretty cool. Desiree: Yep, they surprised me with that today. I'm like Vera. Got me an internship at Vera...that's good...
Recently, she and Brian had a check-in with Judge White...where it was revealed that when Desiree doesn't want to go to school, her group home calls the police, yes the police.
Rodriguez: the Woolworth building is beautiful right? Desiree: Yeah. I like being down here at night because it's pretty.
Exposing her to the police ups the chances Desiree will be arrested again. And she's 17 now--so when she gets prosecuted, it's as an adult.

And Desiree has been trying to control herself. Once she left the juvenile system, she went 9 months without getting arrested. She also got a job at Denny's And an internship at Vera Institute of Justice--A NONPROFIT FOCUSED ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM.
Chapan: Um call me though. Ok. like if you want somebody just to show up there and be there to support you. I'm like down. I'll come through. I'll be with the kid. Desiree: I'm gonna call you tonight. It might be a little bit late. . . (FADE the rest of the conversation under me) Desiree: You know how to do like trigonometry and stuff? Chapman: I do statistics. Trig is outside my wheelhouse. But I can get you some support around trig.... Chapman: There's this tendency to like do this thing where it's like, ' you need to take accountability for your actions lalalala' But being able to say, no every fucking thing around me was like messed up and everybody that was supposed to protect me did not and every institution that should have be able to intervene thought that I was worthy of just being thrown in the trash and so you wonder why these kids are out here punching folks in the face...uhhh.
It's an unseasonably warm night and we just left Vera's offices at the Woolworth Building :

Vera first recruited Desiree to speak to a city task force working to end detention for girls ...And now as part of her fellowship, she's actually helping to create a set of questions that will hopefully get used by the city to assess foster homes for girls.

Through her work, she also got introduced to a researcher, Shonda Chapman, whose become a mentor.
LINDSAY: We're really trying to pinpoint specific schools and neighborhoods that might be struggling with family violence the most and having the most simple assault cases coming into particular precincts.
Shonda encourages Desiree to keep up with school so she can graduate. Desiree wants help with math:

Shonda was also in the juvenile justice system.

The idea that girls are being violent because they've been abused, ignored and misunderstood is PART OF THE REASON WHY THE CITY TASK FORCE WANTS TO END INCARCERATION FOR GIRLS....OR AT LEAST REDUCE THEIR ARRESTS AND FIND SERVICES they respond to that will keep them out of the system in the first place. Last year girls in New York City were put in detention 415 times. Those are short term stays while a judge decides what to do with them. 49 got sentenced to a more long term placement.
Desiree: to live the rich life.... Zimmerman: but that's not the only reason you're going to the program. It is to talk about the issues of women incarcerated. Desiree: I KNOW THAT BECAUSE THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED AND ALSO TO GET AWAY
90 percent of the girls in the juvenile justice system are black or latina.
Zimmerman: You need to be responsible and I will do my job to kept it on the calendar so I can get orders if I need to.
LINDSAY ROSENTHAL IS A RESEARCHER AT VERA... SHE SAYS THE CHARGE THAT GETS GIRLS DETAINED THE IS ASSAULT IN THE THIRD DEGREE... THE LEAST SERIOUS ASSAULT CHARGE. And these fights mostly happen at school and at home:

VERA IS RUNNING THE CITY TASK FORCE. ROSENTHAL HOPES THAT WHAT COMES OUT OF IT WILL BECOME A NATIONAL MODEL FOR ENDING INCARCERATION FOR GIRLS. DESIREE IS CRITICAL OF THE SYSTEM BUT SHE's also kind of an expert on it.

AND VERA HAS INVITED HER TO A NATIONAL CONFERENCE IN Washington DC.... IT'S ABOUT EMPOWERING GIRLS IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM . It's a CHANCE TO TRAVEL AND TO get away from her group home:

Zimmerman: it may be nice to have a few days away from them...

BUT THE Administration for Children's Services SAYS HER MOM HAS TO APPROVE THE TRIP. THEY WON'T LET HER GO WITHOUT IT...Brian STEPS IN ONCE AGAIN, AND SAYS HE'LL GET A COURT ORDER IF NECESSARY:
Desiree: When I went to jail and stuff, I wanted to be a child. I was forced to be like older. I had to take care of myself at the age of 11. It was really hard. Like I was out there doing things that I didn't want to do but I was basically forced to do it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.Um I just feel like they just need to treat kids like kids and base things off their history cuz everybody been through stuff. They just wanna like ... they just wanna like look at your paperwork instead of like looking at the person you are because when everybody interview me and they see my paperwork they be like, 'oh dang I don't want to interview this person or she's crazy; she needs to be locked up. But when you really get to know me and really see me I am not that person on paper, I am not that person no more. I try everyday to be a new person and not go back to my old ways...applause
He gets the court order and Desiree makes the trip:

Desiree: Hi Cindy...so I'm walking up the escalator on my way to my room. We just got back from building power, a woman's initiative. . . I like it here...it is really good...like really, really good.

Rodriguez: She leaves me this message from the conference. Desiree isn't just an attendee. She's on a panel and there's dozens of people sitting in front of her waiting to hear her speak:
Kia: Z is in Coxsackie Correctional Facility. I believe he has no idea where he is, how far he is away from home.
Desiree: Good afternoon....I've been working with Vera on ending girls incarceration in NYC. Girls come into child welfare as innocent kids but as they go deeper into the system and are moved from home to home it messes with them mentally. Taking psych assessments over and over. . . It's retraumatizing to have to think about your story -- getting verbally assaulted and physically abused. With the trauma and everything child welfare does to them, girls are unhappy. They have all this anger inside them. They go into the community and commits things. Then the juvenile system gets involved and sends them to these placements for god knows how long, where you don't know who is going to hurt you. You are forced to become older. You are disrespected because of your history; and you are not able to be a kid no longer.
CREDITS / Caught is a production of WNYC Studios and the Narrative Unit of WNYC News. This episode was reported by Cynthia Rodriguez. Dwayne Betts is a consultant on the podcast. Cayce Means is our technical director. Bill Moss mixed this episode ... Our team of talented producers includes Rebecca Carroll, Jessica Miller, Sophia Paliza-Carre and Patricia Willens Michelle Harris is our fact checker. Kaari Pitkin is our senior producer. Karen Frillmann is our executive producer. Jim Schacter is WNYC's Vice President for News. And I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for listening. Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio's programming is the audio record. terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information. Hannis Brown is our composer and Students Taja Graves-Parker, Alberto Lugo and Sean Gary from Building Beats provided additional music.
Desiree has a 79-point-pan to make things right. The core of it is this: bad behavior is rooted in a child's pain and they don't deserve to be punished for that:

Five months after she returned from the conference, Desiree was picked up by police in the Bronx. She had warrants for failing to check in with her probation officer and for missing court dates. Her public defender told me her group home did nothing to help Desiree keep up with the requirements imposed by the criminal justice system...like helping her to find transportation to court. She is now in Rikers Island, a violent, chaotic jail for adults. The city is still coming up with ways to end incarceration for girls. Unfortunately, any change to the system, comes too late for Desiree.

KAI:Ok, so it's been a while..but remember Z? from earlier in the podcast? [Bouncing like a bunny music or stay in school rap] Yeah, him, the goofy kid who, somewhere along the way... grew into an angry kid.

In episode 1, we explained that, by the age of 12, Z was already caught up in the system... getting repeatedly detained and arrested, going to court, and eventually getting locked up at 16 -- after he and a group of friends robbed somebody...one one of them had a gun. That's where we met Z. He was in juvenile detention..and we hung out with him until he got out. Mom: welcome home! Z: yeah, i'm back! Mom: Tay Tay, your brother's home! Z's mom has always felt like his real problem was his environment ... that he's just surrounded by bad choices, in the neighborhood and in school, and so he's set up to fail... She would've loved an option like wilderness camps -- to send him away some place that wasn't jail and to buy him time to grow up. But she didn't have that option. And when Z got out... well, he didn't stay out. That's where we left him in Episode 2: getting arrested again.

So we're gonna follow Z upstate, to prison. That's in final the final episode of Caught.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode 8: 'I Want Someone to Love Me Even for a Second' | Caught | WNYC Studios

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Desiree: I wanna be in movies. I wanna act. You ever watch teen movies, what's that? mean girls, mean girls. I wanna be like one of those. YOUTUBE TRAILER: Get in loser... we're going shopping. Rodriguez: Desiree is seventeen. And what she craves most is the carefree life of a spoiled teenager: Youtube trailer: Calculus class ...

# data[].attributes.body
Sam (not real name of my teacher) uses ungrading to promote individualized learning for each student.
https://www.chemedx.org/blog/ungrading-what-it-and-why-should-we-use-it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
* Grades are not good incentive or effective feedback
* Grades are not good markers of learning
* Grades encourage competitiveness over collaboration
* Grades pit students and teachers against each other
* Grades are mechanisms of institutional control
* Grades aren't fair

- Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) January 1, 2020

Alfie Kohn (2011) made a case for a modern ungrading by arguing that assessment entails collecting " information about how students are doing, and then [sharing] that information (along with our judgments, perhaps) with the students...[and modern assessment is distracting us from] a pair of remarkable conclusions that emerge from the best theory, practice, and research on the subject: Collecting information doesn't require tests, and sharing that information doesn't require grades" (Kohn, 2011, p.1, [brackets] are mine). Susan Blum (2017) went on to make a more in-depth argument against grades:

And in my research on learning and education, I had learned a lot about grades, such as:

Grading requires uniformity. It assumes uniform input, uniform process and uniform output. I stopped believing that was a useful way to approach student learning. Students don't start out the same. They don't have the same life experiences -- or even academic experiences -- during our semester together. They don't go to the same places afterward. They have different goals.

Grades don't provide adequate information. If the purpose of grades is to convey a student's accomplishment, adequacy, excellence, compliance, effort and/or gain in learning, then they fail. Is a student who enters already knowing a lot and continues to demonstrate knowledge at a high level, but then misses an assignment because of a roommate's attempted suicide and ends up with a B-plus, the same as someone who begins knowing nothing, works really hard, follows all the rules, does quite well and ends up with a B-plus? What information is conveyed? What about someone who loves biology and excels in those classes, but who loathes history, bombs in history classes and ends up with a 3.0 GPA? Compared to someone who muddles through every class and a similar GPA, yet with no passion, excellence or highs or lows? What do we learn from the GPA? What does a course grade mean?

Grades don't truly motivate students. Experts [Ryan & Deci, 2000] distinguish different types of motivation: 1) intrinsic, or doing things for their own sake and 2) extrinsic, or doing things for external benefits not inherently part of the activities themselves. I would also add fear and avoidance as big motivators, or doing something to avoid negative consequences. (Blum, 2017, p.1, [brackets] are mine)

Therefore ungrading, for me, is a process within my exam grading that I use to focus student attention on individual constructive and specific feedback (with no numbers attached) and that involves a conversation between the student and the instructor. I provide feedback to the students and the students provide feedback to me about their answers and why they might think their answers are still correct, even if I have provided feedback to the contrary. The conversation via written feedback combined with the oral conversation that happens once the written feedback process has ended has been illuminating in terms of what mastery learning entails. In addition, I have learned a lot about how to scaffold my students' learning in future semesters.

: This ungrading process divorced feedback from grades. It included student assignment of point totals, corrections, reflections on exam performance, and the ability to argue that questions were unfair. Most of the specifics of prototype I have been discussed extensively if you're interested in more information (Sorensen-Unruh, 2019d).

: This "ungrading" process assigned grades, did not focus on feedback, and essentially eliminated the conversation between instructor and student concerning exam grades. It included corrections, reflections on exam performance, and the ability to argue that questions were unfair. Most of the specifics of prototype II have been discussed extensively if you're interested in more information (Sorensen-Unruh, 2020a).

Reflections on Implementation : This implementation allowed students some say over their grades. If ceding to students some measure of agency over their grades is the main point of ungrading, then this implementation did provide for a small measure. When I designed it based on student feedback from the first implementation, I thought this prototype would move towards ungrading. It seemed to fall squarely within my students' wheelhouse, and they liked this implementation. They did not need to be sold on its virtues. Yet, it was still basically a grading process with some added reflection. It wasn't an ungrading process at all as the focus was not on direct feedback.

Perhaps it was an implementation of something that squarely fell in between grading and ungrading? Handing back the exams with grades on them and little feedback seems to defy all of the tenets of ungrading. Being unable to significantly converse about grades with my students significantly defied my own definition of ungrading. And, still, my students felt like they had a voice in their own grading outcomes. So, prototype II wasn't a traditional grading scheme but it wasn't ungrading either. The reality, though, is that this version of somewhere in between ungrading and grading is the version most STEM folks I know would be willing to implement first. Maybe it is a starting point for those folks in their ungrading journey; an implementation that starts to feel like ungrading but isn't quite ungrading yet...

ecause this "ungrading" process failed to give feedback (and thus divorce feedback from grades) and provided little time for an oral conversation between instructor and student concerning exam grades, I would probably not implement it again (never say never, right?).

: This ungrading process divorces feedback from grades. It includes student assignment of point totals, corrections, reflections on exam performance, and the ability to argue that questions were unfair. Most of the specifics of prototype III have been briefly captured if you're interested in more information (Sorensen-Unruh, 2020b).

Ungrading, at its essence, involves ceding power (that has pretty exclusively belonged to us as instructors) to our students in terms of monitoring and assessing their own progress. It allows students to reflect on their learning and to learn what they need to do to enhance their future learning. Ungrading promotes student learning and assessment in ways that are sometimes explicit and sometimes hidden, but it ultimately requires us as instructors to buy into training students skills that are critical within our students' schooling and within their lives (performance reviews require the exact same skills). Ungrading is an investment - of time, of effort, and of love - in our students' futures, and, for me, it has been a critical investment that is now an essential part of my pedagogy.

Blum,S.D. (2017). The Significant Learning Benefits of getting rid of grades. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/11/14/significant-learning-benefits-getting-rid-grades-essay

Burbules, N. C., & Berk, R. (1999). . In T.S. Popkewitz & L. Fendler (Eds). Critical Thinking and Critical Pedagogy: Relations, Differences, and Limits Critical Theories in Education. New York City, NY: Routledge.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), pp. 81-112. Retrieved from

Kohn, A. (November 2011). The case against grades [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-grades/

Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, pp. 54-67. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020 Retrieved (for free) from https://mmrg.pbworks.com/f/Ryan,+Deci+00.pdf

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (September 4, 2019a). Critical Thinking vs. Critical Pedagogy [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.chemedx.org/blog/critical-thinking-vs-critical-pedagogy

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (October 2, 2019b). Practical Classroom Implementations for Critical Pedagogy [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.chemedx.org/blog/practical-classroom-implementations-critical-pedagogy

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (@RissaChem). (January 1, 2019c). . Do y'all ever worry about undergrads' (1st 2 yrs) lack of tolerance for nebulous grades (due to ungrading & feedback oriented practices)? Worried my Ss will balk at not knowing their grades at all times [Twitter post]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/RissaChem/status/1080212845558550529

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (February 2, 2019d). Ungrading: A Series [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/2019/02/10/ungrading-a-series-part-1/

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (January 2, 2020a). Ungrading: Prototype II (General Chemistry II) [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/2020/01/03/ungrading-prototype-ii-general-chemistry-ii/

Sorensen-Unruh, C. (January 3, 2020b). Ungrading: Prototype III (Envisioned Large Lecture Implementation in General Chemistry I) [Blog Post]. https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/2020/01/03/ungrading-prototype-iii-envisioned-large-lecture-implementation-in-general-chemistry-i/

Stommel, J. (October 26, 2017), Why I Don't Grade [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.jessestommel.com/why-i-dont-grade/

Stommel, J. (March 11, 2018). How to Ungrade [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.jessestommel.com/how-to-ungrade/

Underwood, J. S., & Tregidgo, A. P. (2010). Improving student writing through effective feedback: Best practices and recommendations. Journal of Teaching Writing, 22(2), 73-98.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ungrading: What is it and why should we use it?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ungrading has long been associated with the idea of purposefully eliminating or minimizing the use of points or letters to assess student work. The focus of ungrading is to provide extensive feedback to students and then jointly (students and instructors) come to a consensus as to what the grade should be.

# data[].attributes.body
Collaborative Communicative tool
Teacher-to-student
Student-to-student
Teacher-to-teacher
Group Me is also a tool that other sociology teachers could use to collaborate together. Teachers can provide useful tips to each other and possibly even share powerpoint slides/notes
https://web.groupme.com/chats

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The free, simple way to stay connected with those who matter most.