Contracting and Re-Contracting in the New Year
Elizabeth Carroll, New England Program Director at Facing History, explores the value of contracting and re-contracting in January each year.
Exit Cards
Students share how they are feeling, what their needs are, and what goals they’d like to set in an exit card.
Authoring My Identity
Students explore the costs and benefits of sharing aspects of their identities, discuss an informational text about “narrative identity,” and apply these concepts to their own lives in an original poem.
What’s In a Name?
Students explore the relationship between our names, identities, and the societies in which we live.
Frame a Special Item
Students identify an object that holds special meaning and learn about each other by sharing the stories of these special items.
Envisioning Our Classroom Space
Students analyze a poem in order to determine the qualities of a classroom community where members are seen, valued, and heard.
More Than Monsters: The Deeper Significance of Wendigo Stories
The wendigo stories of Algonquian peoples offer a window into the endurance of cultural resources used to transmit significant moral values, and underscore the power of Native people using these stories to engage in social critique.
What is Power?
Students define power and then analyze five perspectives about power in order to understand its many sources and the different ways it can be experienced.
Introducing Agency
Students explore the concept of agency, both in literature and in life, and examine the societal forces that play a role in an individual’s agency.
Agency, Choice, and Action
Students apply their thinking about power and agency to an analysis of four personal narrative essays written by young people.
The Power of Belonging
Students discuss the first half of Bethany Morrow’s short story “As You Were” and create character maps as a way of exploring the character of Ebony’s identity and sense of belonging in her school community.