American Voices

Seventh-Grade Signature Program:

American Voices

At Ransom Everglades, the seventh-grade year culminates in a powerful interdisciplinary experience that challenges students to examine the heartbeat of American activism, both past and present. The American Voices capstone project, a collaboration between the Humanities Department’s English and history teachers, invites students to research social movements, analyze the strategies of changemakers, and imagine themselves as agents of progress.

Over the course of the project, students explore the essential questions: What strategies have activists used to create social change? and How have movements evolved over time? With these guiding inquiries, students dive into independent research, tracing the lives of historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Dolores Huerta or Harvey Milk, and pairing their efforts with the work of modern activists. From environmental justice to gender equality, students are encouraged to find movements that connect to their own passions.

The project unfolds in two parts: first, a structured research and writing phase, where students develop argument-driven essays analyzing their chosen activists and movements; and second, a public-facing capstone presentation. In a culminating event modeled after a panel discussion, students present their findings alongside tri-fold posters that synthesize their historical research with a forward-looking “service-learning” component.

This forward-thinking portion of the project asks students not only to study activism but to step into it. Each student proposes a service-learning initiative (real or imagined) designed to address a contemporary social issue. They consider audience, timeline, metrics of success, and types of social pressure that have proven effective in the past. In doing so, students reflect on their own role in civic life and the ways their voices can shape the future.

As one student shared, “It’s one thing to read about history, but this project made me feel like I could be part of it.”

With vibrant posters, compelling arguments and meaningful questions from peers and teachers during the gallery walk, American Voices doesn’t just teach history: it gives it new life through the voices of seventh graders ready to lead.

Seventh-grade student

“It’s one thing to read about history, but this project made me feel like I could be part of it.”

Middle School

2045 South Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove, FL 33133
Phone: 305 250 6850

Upper School

3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove, FL 33133
Phone: 305 460 8800

Accreditations and Memberships

Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.

Ransom Everglades School®, The RE Way™, RE Pathways™ and Bowden Fellowships in the Humanities™ are trademarks of Ransom Everglades School.

RE founder Paul Ransom, circa 1903