Graduating senior and English major Elliot Hajjaj recently completed his senior thesis: a three-part podcast about high and middle school English called “We Matter: Voices in Education.” Alongside his English degree, Elliot earned a dual degree in History and fulfilled the requirements of the Study and Practice of Writing specialization. He has also worked as a production assistant at Tumble Media, the team behind the award-winning children's science podcast, Tumble Science Podcast for Kids.
Elliot’s senior thesis investigates the importance of—and pedagogy behind—supporting students' voices in middle school and high school English classrooms. During the past academic year, Elliot interviewed guests and wrote, produced, narrated, and edited each 20-minute episode.
In the podcast series, Elliot understands “voice” as expression, agency, and identity. These themes are discussed in detail throughout as Elliot speaks with three current middle and high school English teachers, Nicholas Blaisdell, Seth Czarnecki, and David Mello, all alumni of UMass Amherst; a current visiting professor in the English Department, Marian MacCurdy; and a researcher on high school English, Jeremy Levine, UMass Amherst PhD ’24.
In episode one, “Fear,” Elliot interviews teachers to document the grim realities of today's classrooms—including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, decreased standardized test scores, national issues of student absenteeism, and concerning mental health data—and the pivotal problems of a rule-bound and voice-less education system.
In episode two, “Expression,” Elliot’s interviews with a teacher and a professor illuminate ways to encourage students' experimentation with novel instructional methods including labor-based grading and personal writing.
In the final episode, “Reality,” Elliot concludes the series with an examination of the realities of implementing an experimental and voice-centric curriculum. The interviewees share anecdotes about empowering students through rhetoric and offering choices in order to urge forth students’ voices.
“It’s my hope that through writing and through school, students can find out who they are,” Elliot says in the first episode. “They can find their interests or their values. Or they can see that they are not just a check on an attendance sheet. I hope that students can use their voices and eventually say, ‘This is me and I matter.’”